A brave initiative by Robert Hiscox, creator of the international insurance empire, has saved Marlborough’s independent White Horse Bookshop from closure after serving the town under three owners since 1948.
He has bought the business and the freehold of its 17th century listed High Street premises along with Brian Kingham, the industrialist and farmer, and appointed a former Waterstones’ executive as its new manager.
Together the trio are set to revamp the current premises, in particular adding an additional books section, to provide a new chapter in the history of the White Horse, which it was feared would disappear when it went up for sale last year for £600,000.
And Mr Hiscox, a committed sponsor of Marlborough’s literary festival, who lives in Oare, has issued a plea to the town’s booklovers to back the venture to ensure that the White Horse has a viable future.
“We really do want people to rally round,” he told Marlborough News Online. “Brian and I are doing this to ensure the White Horse is kept going against all the usual commercial imperatives of making money.
“We are trying to make money out of something that simply has got to survive. We want to keep the High Street with its own bookshop. We hope that if people know there is something local behind it with some clout, then they will believe in it – and support it.”
Mr Kingham lives in Aldbourne and knows Marlborough well and is equally well known in his own community.
He and Mr Hiscox, a legendary figure in the City during his years as Hiscox chairman, have hired Angus MacLennan, the 47-year-old former manager of Waterstones’ bookshop in King’s Road, Chelsea, as the White Horse’s new manager.
He has 22 years experience in retail bookselling and has already started work on major facelift plans for the White Horse, aiming at early April as the date for declaring open the revamped bookshop.
“I’m very excited,” he told Marlborough News Online. “It’s a bookseller’s dream really to have the opportunity to shape a shop in the way I am going to have – and in such a beautiful place with such a healthy market.
“It is reassuring to know that everyone was so desperate for the White Horse to continue. It has been a desperate time for independent bookshops going out of business, but we may have come through the worst, however, with the digital revolution.
“That seems to have hit a plateau in the last six months. We may now find out how the ground lies.”
His extensive experience – he has worked for Hammicks and Ottakers as well as Waterstone and has organised the SW11 Literary Festival in Clapham – will in particular be an asset for the Marlborough LitFest.
Many feared that without its own retailing outlet, the festival, now in its fourth year, would have serious difficulties in supplying books at festival events every September.
Mr Hiscox added: “Angus is very flamboyant and determined to make it work. We will have to be more specialist. I don’t think you can be a generalist in bookshops.
“What we want is some input from people about what they want. The whole science of retailing is having in the shop the books that people want. Perhaps your readers can help with the research we are going to have to do.”
And the takeover – at least two members of the current White Horse staff will continue in post – has delighted 71-year-old Michael Pooley, who has owned the White Horse since 1973.
“This is fabulous news,” he told Marlborough News Online. “There are not many independent bookshops that successfully change hands in today’s climate. So I am thrilled that Marlborough is going to have a cracking good business.
“It’s time for me to go. It’s time for the changing of the guard.
“And it is all thanks to you for introducing Robert Hiscox to us in the first place.”
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