While many radical bookshops across the UK fold under the increasing costs of running a small business, Housmans in Peace House has remained a community pillar for readers and activists alike.
Behind a canary-yellow and rainbow-clad exterior, the two stories of Housmans’ bookshop are lined floor-to-ceiling with radical literature and trinkets, stocking everything from Anarcho-Feminist titles to novelty Toni Morrison prayer candles, as well as a selection of independent zines with covers so obscene they’d hospitalise your Gran.
The space brims with sprawling plant life, interspersed with wall-hangings and posters donning quips like ‘FUCK THE TORIES’ and ‘we don’t need landlords, landlords need us’.
What began in 1958 as a money-making venture for pacifist publication Peace News has become a long-standing hub for liberation movements in London.
Amidst a row of nondescript bars and chicken shops, Housmans on Caledonian Road has seen far more than your average brick-and-mortar bookseller, including a fugitive arrest, a spy infiltration, and two bomb explosions.
It’s a far cry from the days of Peace News, which resided on the first floor until 1974, while Housmans offered stationery, greeting cards and a small selection of anti-war publications to keep upstairs operations afloat.
Since its independence, Housmans’ roots have expanded beyond its anti-war origins to champion all social justice causes. However, it holds firm in its penchant for disruption.
While bookselling giants like Amazon and Waterstones cast looming shadows over indie shops like Housmans, the not-for-profit organisation sets itself apart by creating a safe space for liberals to browse, learn, and engage in political dialogue.
“We’re partly distinct in what we don’t stock”, explains Catherine Barter, one in a team of booksellers who collectively run the shop, “most of the big chains would also stock whichever Tory ministers’ biographies, and people like Jordan Peterson.
We don’t stock books by authors that we’ve considered transphobic feminists, which does get us in trouble with some people within our political movement.”
“The way the shop is run is also very distinct from a big chain because we are all paid the same. We don’t have one overall manager. We’re all empowered to be decision makers and set our wages,” Catherine explained.
Housmans has ties with some of the UK’s most pivotal social justice movements, including the LGBTQ+ helpline Switchboard.
“The basement was where the Gay Liberation Front used to have their meetings, as well as Gay News in its early stages,” says Tash Walker, queer historian and archive volunteer at Switchboard.
The two groups came together to form Switchboard, which took its first call on March 4, 1974, in an office above Housmans.
“Without that space, I don’t know what [Switchboard] would have done, where it would have gone, where that phone would have rung for the very first time,” says Tash. “This was a time where so many people were being rejected by their families. It wasn’t okay to be queer.”
“Housmans was always there and consistent. If you think about Peace House as a home, that is what it represented to the queer community”.
Today, Housmans remains a hotbed of creativity and radical discussion, hosting community events with politically engaged authors and activists.
However, Tash sees power in its identity as a living archive: “Just to be in that space, and to think about everything that happened within it, in itself is very inspiring,” she told us.
“I mean, I hope it lasts forever and with it its legacy.”
All images by Maddie Dinnage.