Foolscap Open daily, see hours

Stationers · Lake Road, Keswick

Paper, pens and pencils, on Lake Road in Keswick.

Try anything at the counter before you buy it.

Find the shop See the shelves

Wrapped at the counterEverything leaves wrapped in our map paper, the 1952 Ordnance Survey sheet of Keswick, and tied with jute. Wrapping is free.

Try it first

Every pen in the shop is filled, and every paper has a sheet out to write on.

A sheet of wove paper on the counter with “Try any pen on any paper” written on it in blue-black, a navy fountain pen lying across it

Bring your own pen if you like. We’ll tell you which of our papers it suits, and which it doesn’t, before you buy a thing.

Three inks written out on laid paper, an ebonite fountain pen, a pencil and a bottle of ink on the oak counter

The shelves

Six shelves, from a £1.20 pencil to a £120 pen.

  1. ( 1 ). Paper and envelopes How heavy, how smooth, and whether it has a deckle. 4 things · from £3
  2. ( 2 ). Notebooks Sewn in the back room, or made to go in a pocket. 4 things · from £7
  3. ( 3 ). Pencils Keswick’s own trade: graphite, cedar and lacquer. 4 things · from £1.20
  4. ( 4 ). Pens and ink Every pen filled and on the counter to try. 4 things · from £12
  5. ( 5 ). Desk and post For sealing, folding and tying things up. 4 things · from £5
  6. ( 6 ). Cards and wrapping Letterpress cards, and the paper we wrap in. 4 things · from £3

Walk the shelves

The test sheet

Same pen, same ink, three papers.

Writing paper is sized: coated with starch or gelatine so ink stays on the surface. Blotting paper has no sizing, so it drinks the ink instead.

Wove paper: the words written in iron gall ink stay crisp and thin
Wove, 120gsmWell sized. The line stays the width of the nib.
Laid paper: the same words, the line broken slightly where it crosses the laid lines
Laid, 100gsmThe nib skips a little across the laid lines. Some people write on nothing else.
Blotting paper: the same words, the ink spread and feathered into the fibres
Blotting paperNo sizing. The ink runs along the fibres and every line spreads.

Behind the counter

Ruth sews the notebooks. Dan fixes the pens.

Ruth’s bench: folded signatures of laid paper, linen thread and a needle, a bone folder and a finished navy notebook

Bookbinder, runs the shop

Ruth Askew

Chooses the paper, and sews the notebooks in the back room.

Dan’s tray: two fountain pens, a loupe, an ink bottle, a dip pen and a strip of test paper

Pens

Dan Hartley

Mends pens on Thursdays, 10am to 4pm, while you wait.

How the shop started

A lump of graphite beside a blue Foolscap pencil and a squared pocket survey book on the counter

Keswick, the 1500s

The first pencils came out of Borrowdale, eight miles up the valley.

A seam of graphite was found above Seathwaite so pure it could be sawn straight into sticks. Locals called it wad. The Crown guarded the mine and flooded it between digs to stop people stealing it. Keswick made pencils until 2006, when the factory moved to Workington; the Pencil Museum stayed.

Keswick town centre on the 1952 Ordnance Survey map, with Foolscap marked on Lake Road just south of the Moot Hall Moot Hall Foolscap
Ordnance Survey, 1952

Visit

9 Lake Road, two minutes from the Moot Hall.

H.
Monday to Saturday 9.30am to 5.30pm, Sunday 11am to 4pm
A.
9 Lake Road, Keswick, Cumbria CA12

Open in Maps

The same counter at half past five: the parcel unwrapped, a navy notebook on the open map paper, low sun across the oak

Half past five, Lake Road

Come and try it.

Bring the pen you already write with, or borrow one of ours, and try it on all three papers.

Find the shop