About Us

 

Westwood Books is a large, independent, family-run bookshop in Sedbergh, Cumbria. In June 2020 it changed to new owners, local couple Paul and Heather Thomas. We stock over 70,000 books across two floors, mainly second-hand with some new and some antiquarian. We cover a wide range of topics and have books in nearly every subject with a dedicated Collector's Book Room for our scarcer titles. Alongside books we offer maps, literary themed gifts and cards. Customers can browse our bookshelves at leisure or sit down and relax with a cup of coffee from our coffee machine. In 2009 we were named one of The Guardian's Top Ten Secondhand Bookshops, and author Bill Bryson has described our bookshop as 'large and excellent'.

The book shop was originally opened in 2006 by Mark and Evelyn Westwood. The building had been a factory, and before that a local cinema and village hall.

They had been running a bookshop in Hay-on-Wye for more than 20 years and decided to take on a new project. They met the directors of the fledgling Sedbergh Book Town Company at an International Book Towns Organisation conference in Wigtown, who had expressed their hopes to make Sedbergh, England's Official Book Town. Intrigued by this idea, they viewed the then redundant factory on the edge of the retail area and fell in love with the building and Sedbergh. They purchased the building in the summer of 2005, and after nine months of renovations, miles of shelf building and a new glazed frontage to replace the steel roller shutter door, Westwood Books opened for business at Easter in 2006.

Sedbergh is a small market town in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, just 5 miles from Junction 37 of the M6.

We are usually open every day, seven days a week from 10:30am, except Christmas day.

We do buy books, depending on their condition and our current stock. Certain subjects and books are always desirable, particularly specialist books. If you wish to sell your books please contact us in advance. You can read more about our book buying process here. 

Westwood Books is a trading name of Ollie Collie Ltd