Wardour News has a faint but distinct smell. It's something like different grades and textures of paper, mixed with the vanillin of hardback books and elastic bands. It's what you’d expect from this treasure trove of print, where anything you'd seek out – an architecture magazine from Tokyo, an independent Australian cooking glossy, a music monthly focused on an obscure rock sub-genre – was there carefully fanned out on its shelves; and if wasn't, they'd do their best to source it for you.

Without trying to overly romanticise yet another closing space in a changing city – which I’m inevitably going to do – Wardour News has always been a space where people discover things. Young people from the suburbs flocked in to buy titles they couldn’t get elsewhere, and Raj Patel – the shop’s founder – or his brother Ash and friend Hitesh Patel, were always present to advise and assist not just in acquiring print items, but creating and selling them. A mecca for anyone involved in independent print culture.

All that ends on the 25th of May, Friday of this week. The shop will open and close its doors from 7AM until 7PM for the final time. It can no longer sustain itself for a few reasons; the most prominent – as is often the case with closures of beloved cultural spaces in central London – is rising rent.

This was a rare fashion-orientated space that wasn't lofty or intimidating or snobby. Standing inside, carefully turning the pages of magazines (until you sensed Raj's generosity wavering and bought whatever you could afford), was a rite of passage for creative young people in London, a secret gateway to the worlds you thought the capital was going to offer.

Archives are increasingly being moved online – you can digitally access streams of magazine pages on paid-for sites – and most information on trends, arts, music, film and books can be googled, but the tangible side of all that is being lost. "Finding stuff" online could never compare to the environment created inside that shop. The sort of glossy print products Wardour sold deserve a space to exist; to be looked at and spoken about – for the new covers to be appreciated every time the window display is changed.

On my last visit to the shop, a stylish woman came in to buy a magazine – the latest i-D, but I don’t think she cared what it was; it just had to be something – and to tell Raj and the team how much Wardour News meant to her. From their tired response it seemed a lot of people had been in to do the same. The shopfront was half-empty, and so were the insides, the last of the stock to go.

Every time you half-forget about the last thing in London you loved that got priced out, the next thing folds and you think about other (probably imaginary) cities that don’t allow this kind of thing to happen. There is, though, some comfort in gathering our collective memories of the space and what it provided.

Here are the thoughts of some editors of magazines stocked in Wardour News, who also loved it:

Terri White, Editor-in-Chief at Empire

Wardour News has always, always been there for me. When I first came to London to intern on a magazine’s reception desk and knew no one in the city, I'd seek refuge within its walls. Lightly touching the magazines that filled its floors and lined its shelves, it represented to me everything I wanted, but was terrified I would never get. The fashion girls who strode past me without making eye contact every morning made me feel like I didn’t belong. Wardour News made me feel like I could. Over the years, I’ve sought refuge in there: from fights – professional, personal – bad news, good news. I’ve bought enough magazines to resurrect a forest. In time, it’s become like an old friend or family member; its very presence offering comfort and warmth. And as a magazine editor now myself, sometimes just going in there reminds me that print is still vital, still intoxicating. Much like the city that has now been my home for 18 years, it's part of who I am. I've grown up, become a woman, within its walls. I thought it would always, always be there for me.

Claire Marie Healy, deputy editor at Dazed and Confused

When we heard that Wardour News was shutting down, the person I was with said something along the lines of, "Well, there are loads of places you can buy these kinds of magazines these days, they're just not in the centre." Well, sure – but are those kind of hi-brow independent shops just for magazines, and do they have the kind of welcoming, approachable environment that Wardour News has fostered over its 34 years? It's hard to count the number of times I've tried to buy mags elsewhere and experienced a po-faced, salty reception from the individual behind the till. Wardour News did something that doesn't happen often enough – making inspiring, radical fashion and culture ultra-accessible.