ABOUT: Calliope Gifts:
Calliope Gifts is a leading independent retailer of gifts and greeting cards based in the UK. Trading since 2013 we sell a broad range of gifts, homewares, toys and greetings cards from three town centre shops as well as this website. As an independent, we pride ourselves on supporting small suppliers based in the UK.
Our inspiration is to help you find ’a gift for everyone’. Most of our products are in the £5-25 range, though we have statement pieces above that price as well as inexpensive pocket money gifts. Whatever the price, we never skimp on quality.
Our selection of interesting and attractive gifts is created for you and your family and friends, drawing on suppliers across the UK and Europe. We take great care to select products with consideration for quality, design and provenance – gifts that are a pleasure to give, and a delight to receive. We are particularly proud of our range of greetings cards, which we believe is the largest you can find online from any UK retailer, and of our Calliope branded candles and reed diffusers, handmade for us in the Cotswolds. Our collections change rapidly as we like to bring you the freshest inspiration
We opened our first shop in Dorking in the spring of 2013, and a year later we won the "Best Newcomer (South & Wales)" at the prestigious 2014 Greats Gift Shop Awards. We have also been finalists at the Retas Greeting Card Awards in 2015 and 2016 and the Greats Gift Shop Awards in 2018. We're delighted to have received this national recognition. In June 2014, we opened a second location, at Alton in Hampshire. Our third store opened in Haywards Heath in West Sussex in October 2015.
You can read about our three friendly and welcoming shops here and we hope you’ll be able to visit us in person some day. We don’t offer many tricks – just fair prices and good, old-fashioned customer service. We fulfil your online order from our shops, not a distant warehouse, and our expert staff will despatch your goods quickly and efficiently.
Whether you are visiting one of our shops, or ordering from our online store, our attention to detail will make your experience at Calliope a memorable one. We always value our customer feedback, so do get in touch if there's anything you want to share with us. You can contact us and if you want to see how existing customers react to our service have a look at the reviews on Trusted Shops here
What’s a Calliope?
Our name - pronounced "Ca-lye-o-pea" - is derived from an eccentric musical instrument, named after the Greek muse of poetry. A Calliope consisted of a series of steam whistles played through an organ keyboard, and was once a popular feature of circuses, funfairs and steamboats.