Cecil Court’s esoteric book shop Watkins shuts down

After more than 100 years selling books about witchcraft, astrology and black magic, London's oldest esoteric bookshop has gone out of business.

Watkins Books in historic Cecil Court, off Charing Cross Road, whose customers once included occultist Aleister Crowley and WB Yeats, closed on Tuesday after trading continuously since 1897.

As well as falling sales caused by the internet and a loss of trade during the bad weather this winter, Watkins was crippled by a £500,000 tax bill inherited from the previous ownership. The owners are said to have struggled for two years to contest the bill, but gave up this week, making 11 staff redundant.

Tim Bryars, secretary of the Cecil Court Association, said: "We are shell-shocked. Watkins captured the very essence of Cecil Court."

Mr Byers said the current owners, a three-way partnership who had been associated with the shop since the Sixties but who only bought it three years ago, were too upset to talk.

Because the business was now in administration and the debt would be written off, he said there was hope it could be sold as a viable concern. Cecil Court, unchanged since Victorian times, houses a number of specialist bookshops.