Templar Records

Name: Mike Abbott‎
Comment: In the early 1960s I worked in The Strand and two of my favourite record shops were Dobells and Templar Books, the former in Charing Cross Road, the latter off Leicester Square.

Later in the 1960s I was back working in the WC2 area and one of my favourite record shops was The Magic Phonograph in Soho Square...

Templar Books was a bookshop with a developed records section. I knew it well in the early 1960s. It was located in Irving Street which runs between Charing Cross Road and Leicester Square, on the right if you were walking in from Charing Cross Road.

In the early 1960s I bought a number of import LPs including After Midnight by The Nat Cole Trio, and a double from Atlantic Records, The Ray Charles Story. I went back 20 or so years later and bought the CD version of After Midnight. Glad I didn't remove Templar's price tag...
(3 April 2015)

Name: Andrew Thorpe
Comment: Yes. I remember those stickers with an orange background. I worked with Templar Records both in their Irving Street and later at the High Holborn shop. Great to be in at the beginning of the CD era when record companies released their back catalogue.
(2019)

Name: David Murphy
Comment: I remember visiting Templar Records Leicester Square almost on a weekly basis (when I got paid!) in the early 1990s. In early digital for example the Alban Berg Quartet's EMI Mozart which came out on single
CDs which spurred me to hear them live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, plus other great recordings like Colin Davis's Philips Berlioz Les Troyens (transferred to CD). They charged full whack but the service was good. As I remember, there was an elderly guy in charge and his younger assistant which may well have been Andrew!
(2021)

Name: Clive Webb
Comment: I was just listening to - and enjoying - my copy of The Pollwinners (Barney Kessel, Shelley Manne and Ray Brown) which I bought from the High Holborn shop around spring 1988. It was £2.75... reduced from £5.45. The LP was a reissue of a 1957 album. Happy days.
(2022)

Name: Gavin Freedman
Comment: Hi there, love reading these comments. Templar Records was owned by my grandfather John. My great-grandma Lena also worked there.

Andrew - I remember meeting you when I was a child! They were also the first to sell Lady Chatterley's Lover and got featured on ITV news. John also worked there with his brother Gerald.

Here's the ITV segment - you can hear my great-grandma calling out, "Only one book per person!" The other man working there was Gerald.
(2023)