For people who like books
Each month we send a few new arrivals, something worth reading and news from the shop.
Our Story
Bowmore, since 1959
The Celtic House was built in 1959, when the Roy family put up a purpose-built shop on a ruin in the middle of Bowmore. Clearing the site meant removing the village telephone box, which tells you something about how small Bowmore was then, and how seriously the shop was meant.
It opened selling clothes and shoes. In 1959, islanders did not travel off Islay for a pair of boots, so a shop like this had to be the whole wardrobe.
Islay changed. So did the shelves. Over the years the stock turned towards things made here and nearby: knitwear, jewellery, maps, prints and pieces commissioned specially for the shop, alongside a bookshop of Scottish, Gaelic and island writing, much of it from small presses that larger chains never carry.
Upstairs, the coffee shop does cakes baked that morning by Maha.
Sixty-odd years on, the shop is still in the building the family built, in the same spot on the same street. Come in out of the rain and have a look round.