I needed to buy something from WHSmith but they didn't have it in the Stratford Westfield branch so I went to Canary Wharf instead. Except it turned out there isn't a Canary Wharf branch, there hasn't been for years, despite Google telling me it existed and was open. I did some further checking with the WHSmith store locator and it turns out there are no branches in Tower Hamlets, none at all, despite the borough having a larger population than Newcastle, Brighton or Hull. I ended up catching the DLR to Lewisham and buying what I needed there.
And then I thought I'd see if any other London boroughs were WHSmith-free. This isn't easy to research because the store locator's search function displays results by distance and there's no collective map. But by combining multiple searches and compiling my own list I hope this map correctly shows the number of WHSmith branches in each borough.
It turns out there are four WHSmith-less boroughs, namely Tower Hamlets, Islington, Waltham Forest and Barking & Dagenham. Hackney has just one, at Homerton Hospital, barely contributing to east London's paltry provision. But Newham has five - one at Westfield, two at Stratford stations, one in East Ham and one at City Airport.
The red numbers on the map are for boroughs which only have WHSmiths at stations, hospitals or airports, or who have none at all. All the blue numbers are for boroughs with at least one proper standalone high street store.
I'm particular surprised by the red cluster at the heart of the map, i.e. the dearth of 'proper' WHSmiths in central London. Westminster's six, for example, merely comprises five at mainline stations and one concession within Selfridges. Stand in Trafalgar Square and it turns out the nearest twenty WHSmiths are piddly station/hospital/department store versions, and the nearest proper WHSmiths is the store in Brixton. Meanwhile four of Hillingdon's seven are at Heathrow and four of Camden's six are at stations, so even their totals aren't as impressive as they seem.
Yes the company's not what it was so its decline is inevitable. And yes if you want paper clips or marker pens you can always go to Ryman (who have thirty stores within three miles of Trafalgar Square, not none). But it is amazing to see a once ubiquitous chain in such retreat, with just 50 'proper' branches in the capital, two dozen at stations... and falling.
