After my recent post about Alwych notebooks, I kept thinking about the Denbigh notebooks sold by the same company. With Alwych looking like it might be discontinued, I wondered how long Denbigh would still be around… and I found myself coming down with a severe case of FOMOAN: Fear of Missing Out on A Notebook!

Fortunately, I know of a great cure for this particular affliction: just buy the notebook. I picked up two small Denbigh notebooks, one a regular lined notebook, and one with A-Z index tabs.

The price on the website is quite cheap, and online ordering is pretty straightforward, except that for orders outside the UK, you have to wait for them to invoice you separately for the shipping. I was worried that it would be expensive, but my total cost for these two notebooks plus shipping from Scotland to the USA ended up being only $15.43.

And look how cute they are!

I of course went for the pocket size at 3.25 x 5.25″, just a bit smaller than a pocket Moleskine as shown below. This is a hard cover designed to look like a 3-piece case binding– I think they were actually made that way at one time, but now it’s just red and black printing on the slightly textured paper that wraps the cover boards. The Denbigh name is stamped in gold foil on the front and spine. The spine also notes the model number and specs.

The cover has squared off corners and and creases near the spine. The other thing you’ll immediately notice about the exterior is the speckled edges. It all gives the Denbigh notebook a very retro feel.

The notebook opens very flat, thanks to the stitched signatures. Inside, the endpapers are a smooth beige paper, with a list of Denbigh notebook models in the front. The term “commercial books” I suppose speaks to why Denbigh may not survive much longer. The various models are designed for old-fashioned business record-keeping, with some having columns for entering cash amounts. Nowadays it would be a bit crazy for any business not to keep all these records on a computer, and even individuals are more likely to use a computer or phone app to track expenses or contact names.

Both notebooks have lined paper, in a pleasing greenish blue. The indexed version has each letter of the alphabet in stepped cutouts– if there’s a technical name for that, I don’t know it! But I do know it must add a lot to the cost of manufacturing these notebooks.

The paper has a smooth and sturdy feel, so I was optimistic about doing pen tests. I had seen a post on the Fountain Pen Network that said Denbigh were recommended over Alwych notebooks for fountain pen friendliness. But that post was from 2011, and the paper must have changed since then: as you can see from my limited pen tests, my notebook is not fountain pen friendly at all, with the ink spreading and bleeding through quite a lot. It works fine with my Uniball Signo RT 0.38 gel pen, though!

I’m glad I snapped up a couple of these notebooks, even if they may have changed from their original specs. I love the old-fashioned feel of them, and it’s nice to have a notebook that feels like it retains some vestiges of its long history.

If you are interested in more of that history, there is a photo of a 1940s Denbigh notebook in this Etsy listing. You can see another one from the late 1960s here (in an article about family diaries that is fascinating in itself!). Denbigh notebooks were originally manufactured by Waverley Stationery. Not sure if this is the same company that exists today and sells the Waverley Scotland notebooks I reviewed a while back. Denbigh notebooks were later taken over by J. R. Reid printers (more about them here). But according to this government site J. R. Reid is “dormant, ” which doesn’t bode well for future supply of Denbigh and Alwych notebooks unless someone else takes over these brands.