The Hospice of St Francis

Everyone should check out their Ebay shop. I bought a WWI pointer stick and the packaging was immaculate. Thank you.

To my mind, this is perhaps the best general charity shop in Berkhamsted, with only the specialist Oxfam bookshop its equal. It’s small but it always has such a great selection of things to tempt me when I visit, and as usual, it didn’t disappoint. However, I feel that I should mention something that did disappoint me. On my most recent visit I bought a beautifully bound antiquarian book from 1892 which had had the price and gift aid stickers stuck straight onto the leather and patterned, hand-printed paper of the binding. Old books can be fragile – hundred year old materials and modern adhesives often do not get along well. And as I feared, even with extremely careful removal, I was NOT able to prevent damage to the book. So now, instead of the original, reasonably well-preserved William Morris-esque paper, there is a very large and unsightly mark where that paper has lifted from the binding and stuck to the rear of the sticker, something which could have been avoided if the stickers had been placed elsewhere, such as on a post-it note on the inside cover. Which I recommend doing in future as the adhesive is much weaker and therefore less likely to cause damage.