The date for the opening of a new bookshop in York has been revealed.

The Topping & Company store, on the corner of Museum Street and Blake Street, is set to open its doors on Friday, June 5, at 10am. Company director Saskia Topping said they could not wait to welcome customers to the shop. It comes as works to convert the vacant building on the corner of Museum Street and Blake Street have been ongoing since the shop was approved. Company founder Robert Topping said told a City of York Council planning hearing in July last year it would be the largest independent book store to open in the country in living memory. The York store is set to join other Toppings shops in Bath, Edinburgh, Ely and St Andrews. Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) earlier this week, company director Ms Topping said people would soon be able to spend hours browsing their shelves in York. The director said: “We’ve had lots of friendly faces peering in the windows whilst we’ve been getting the books on the shelves – it will be wonderful to fling open the doors and show everyone the space at long last. “It’s taken us four weeks to get all the books on the shelves, and hopefully in the right order. “It’s such a big, labyrinthine space that one of our booksellers has drawn a map to help everyone find the right sections. “We consider ourselves to be range booksellers – for us, there’s great joy in browsing a bookshop and not just finding the popular new titles, but a whole range of brilliant books that have been published in decades past, alongside those from smaller publishers that you might not find elsewhere. “We want our bookshops to be spaces of discovery.”