Broad Street has always carried weight in the story of Lagos Island. It is a street shaped by trade, administration, education, and movement, a corridor where people passed daily on foot and by vehicle, and where buildings gained meaning simply by standing in the flow of the city. One of the most remembered points along this route is the intersection where Broad Street meets Odunlami Street, a corner once known for a Church Missionary Society, C.M.S., bookshop.
In the mid twentieth century, this corner held a bookshop that stood clearly enough in the public eye to become part of the street’s identity. It was not hidden or incidental. Positioned at a major intersection, the shop occupied a place where commerce, learning, and routine city life overlapped.
A Bookshop in the Heart of Lagos Island
A C.M.S. bookshop on Lagos Island carried a meaning beyond simple retail. The Church Missionary Society was closely associated with education, literacy, and religious instruction, and its bookshops formed part of a wider network through which printed materials circulated in the city. These were places connected to schools, churches, and households that relied on books as tools for learning and worship.
At Broad Street and Odunlami Street, the bookshop stood within the commercial core of Lagos Island. The surrounding area was known for offices, trading firms, and institutions that depended on written communication. A bookshop in such a location fitted naturally into the rhythm of the street. It served people whose daily routines already revolved around documents, reading, and record keeping.
The building itself, as seen in period imagery, reflected the practical architecture of its time. It was designed to function as part of a working street, not as a monument. Yet its visibility at a busy corner allowed it to become familiar to passersby, a reference point in conversation and movement.
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The Long Roots of the Institution
The story of the Broad Street bookshop cannot be separated from the longer history of the organisation behind it. C.M.S. Bookshops, now known as CSS Bookshops Limited, traces its establishment to 1869, when it was founded by the Church Missionary Trust in Lagos. From its beginnings, the enterprise was linked to the supply of religious and educational books.
That foundation date places the institution among the earliest organised book distribution efforts in the city. Over time, as Lagos grew and changed, the bookshop adapted to new surroundings and new demands. Buildings came and went, but the name and purpose of the bookshop remained recognisable across generations.
It is this institutional continuity that explains why the Broad Street shop held lasting significance. Even as Lagos Island rebuilt itself repeatedly, the idea of the C.M.S. bookshop remained part of the city’s mental map.
A Corner That Changed with the City
Lagos Island has never been static. Commercial pressure, redevelopment, and modernisation reshaped its streets throughout the twentieth century. Broad Street, in particular, saw buildings rise higher as the city pushed toward denser office use and modern architectural forms.
By the early 1970s, this transformation was clearly visible. One of the most striking symbols of that shift was Bookshop House, completed in 1973. Designed as a sixteen storey office building, it reflected a new approach to commercial architecture, using height, shading, and modern materials to respond to Lagos’s climate and economic ambitions.
The presence of Bookshop House along Broad Street illustrates how familiar names and locations could coexist with dramatic physical change. The memory of the bookshop lingered, even as the skyline altered. For many Lagosians, the street continued to be associated with books and learning, even when the structures themselves evolved.
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Why This Corner Is Still Remembered
Street corners gain meaning when they serve many lives over time. The Broad Street and Odunlami Street intersection did exactly that. It was a place people passed daily, a point where errands were run, directions were given, and routines overlapped. A bookshop at such a junction became more than a business. It became part of how people described the city to themselves.
Today, conversations about old Lagos often focus on vanished cinemas, altered waterfronts, and lost neighbourhood landmarks. The C.M.S. bookshop corner belongs in that conversation. It represents a period when books, education, and faith occupied visible space in the city’s commercial heart.
The photograph that captures this corner does not freeze Lagos in time. Instead, it reminds us that the city has always been in motion. Buildings change. Streets adapt. Institutions survive by shifting with the city around them.
Author’s Note
This story is not about preserving a building but about understanding a place. The C.M.S. bookshop on Broad Street shows how learning and commerce once met at a busy Lagos Island corner, and how that meeting remained part of the city’s memory even as the streets and structures transformed.
References
Northwestern University Libraries Digital Collections, The Church Missionary Society bookshop in Lagos, on the northwest corner of Broad Street at Odunlami Street
CSS Bookshops Limited, About Us, establishment in 1869 by the Church Missionary Trust
The Guardian, Gillian Hopwood obituary, reference to Bookshop House, Lagos, 1973
