Historic bookshop set to close and for sale

Appleby’s Bookshop in Morpeth, Northumberland, is preparing to shut its doors for the last time after 130 years of trading.

The premises has been placed on the market, but being let through estate agent Pattinson is another option for prospective buyers.

The business, founded in the 1880s, is to close after being hit by a fall in customers of late, not helped by the rising competition from online booksellers and the affects of the long, hard winter of the economic downturn on the high street. High business rates are another issue.

The site originally was a paper shop, then a fruiterer and stationer, before being taken over by the Appleby family and transformed into a bookshop.

When Alfie Appleby retired in 1980 William and Anne Wallace emerged as the preferred buyers. Their son Tim Wallace with his wife Alice took over the business and revamped the property adding a coffee shop on-site. They have now made the decision to walk away.

Tim said: “It is just a lack of footfall. Everything was fine until five months ago. And footfall just dropped off. So no footfall, no revenue that is it. Call it a day.”

Appleby’s is to continue trading over the coming weeks, with a half price sale on to reduce its warehouse full of stock.