Charing Cross Road

About This Bookstore

How To Find Us

The nearest Underground station to Foyles is Tottenham Court Road, which is on the Central line and the Northern line. Alternatively Leicester Square, which is on the Northern and Piccadilly lines, is a 5 minute walk from the shop.

Our Flagship Bookshop

The new Foyles flagship at 107 Charing Cross Road houses a range of over 200,000 different titles on four miles (6.5km) of shelves - the equivalent of lining one bank of the Thames with books from Battersea Power Station to the Tower of London. With 37,000 square feet of retail space, spread across eight alternating foot-plates over four floors, it is the largest bookshop to have opened in the UK so far this century. Alongside books, we have a wide range of gifts and stationery, magazines, printed music, classical music CDs and Classic and World DVDs as well as Ray's Jazz, Grant & Cutler Foreign Languages, a Cafe and an Auditorium. An impressive full height central atrium and large windows fill the space with natural light, while the layout allows for easy navigation and the serendipitous discovery of new books.

While the new shop was being built, we ran a competition with ten illustrators from Central Saint Martins to create illustrations for a large-scale building wrap to cover the new building while it was under construction. Artist Rebecca Hendin's entry was selected, commissioned and on the facade of the building until late last year. In January 2015, we were delighted to hear that her design had been awarded bronze in the advertising category of the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles Awards.

Foyles, which was founded in 1903 by brothers William and Gilbert Foyle, first opened on Charing Cross Road in 1906 and moved to its location at 113-119 Charing Cross Road in 1929. Declared by William Foyle to be 'the world's first purpose-built bookshop', it quickly became one of the capital's most well-known literary landmarks. William's daughter, Christina, built friendships with some of the leading writers of the time and pioneered bookshop author events, beginning a lecture series in the 1920s and founding the famous Foyles Literary Luncheons in 1930. The move to 107 Charing Cross Road in June 2014 marks a new chapter for our world-renowned, family-owned bookshop.

We employ more than 80 expert booksellers who will be happy to offer any help or advice you may need. Whilst these days most bookshops are stocked by books bought centrally from head office and distributed across the chain, at Foyles our heads of department are also our buyers, so they truly are experts in their stock and subjects.

You can find out more about the history of Foyles here.

In 2011 Foyles were extremely proud to acquire the business of Grant & Cutler and welcomed them to our flagship store and our website. Established in 1936, Grant & Cutler are the UK's largest foreign language bookseller.

Store Departments

To contact one of our departments, please use the alphabetical list below.

In Our Bookstore Now

Classical Music

Foyles Classical department was established in 2008 and is the now the largest of its kind in London. We offer a comprehensive range of titles on CD, DVD and Bluray. Alongside all the new releases we hold a hand-picked range of 10,000 titles with areas dedicated to both early and Renaissance music and late 20th century and contemporary composers. We specialise in opera, ballet and classical DVD and Bluray, offer a large array of collector’s boxed sets, have a thriving second-hand section and run a number of special offers on our favourite labels throughout the year. Help and advice and a musical chat are always on hand from Jim and Theo and we can order anything available in the UK and send it anywhere in the world if necessary.

For more information visit our dedicated Classical Music page here.