History

Scriptum prides itself on providing an efficient and personal service. We trust that the friendly, interested atmosphere of our shop will encourage you to come back to us again and again and join the growing group of regular customers who enjoy our individual service and have set Scriptum on the way to becoming an Oxford institution.

A walk down 600 year-old Turl Street will take you past three Oxford colleges and a row of some of the oldest and best-respected shops in town. Nestled amongst them is Scriptum Fine Stationery. Inside, amidst the smell of leather and the sound of Italian Opera, you will find an Aladdin's Cave of hand-stitched leather-bound journals, dip pens, quills, Murano glass pens, inks, sealing wax, antique prints and Oxfordshire's largest assortment of Venetian masks. Our extensive selection of fine stationery and handmade paper (sourced from the oldest working paper mill in Europe) continues upstairs, where you will also find our collection of classics texts and Folio books.

Living - as most of us do - amongst a whirl of emails, the hand-written letter holds an increasingly special place in a world where most of our correspondence can be deleted at the touch of a button. In addition to our range of luxurious writing paper, inks and pens, we offer a personal stationery service which enables our customers to have their details printed or engraved on a range of mouldmade and handmade paper, cards and envelopes. In the same vein, we provide a comprehensive wedding stationery service.

Azeem Zakria, Scriptum's director and creative head, founded the business in 2002 after being inspired by a stationery emporium in Florence. We moved to The Turl in 2006 from the tiny site in Oxford's Golden Cross where Scriptum began. Our products are hand picked from small businesses primarily in Britain and Italy, and we are proud of the part we play in ensuring that the old-fashioned values of craftsmanship and attention to detail continue to have a place in the 21st century.

Scriptum prides itself on providing an efficient and personal service. We trust that the friendly, interested atmosphere of our shop will encourage you to come back to us again and again, joining the growing group of regular customers who have set Scriptum on its way to becoming an Oxford institution.