The Bookshop

The shop has many extra features: open fires in the Winter, beloved by all. The Station Buffet with good plain food, coffee, tea and cookies. A model railway acting as a link between the book columns of the central room, along with poetry lines. Three stunning 40-foot murals. A mini-cybercafé (well, two computers!) and free wi-fi. Numerous restored station features. Generous seating. A children's room with enough toys to allow parents and grandparents to browse elsewhere in peace – provided one guardian is left to look after the children! And a whole huge room lined with over forty glass cases containing many of the more interesting antiquarian books

Preservation and Restoration: because of its architecture and history, the owners have done what they can (and felt privileged to do so) to restore and enhance their holding - as and when they could afford to. To that end, the lovely old canopy outside has been re-exposed, the fireplaces put back into working order, a missing skylight glassed in, rooms replastered and repainted. All of which, to our pleasure, has brought, after an absence of thirty years, public life back to a building that was made for it.

But there's still much work to be done. And probably always will be. Just as Stuart dreams of restoring the working train, for example, I dream of restoring the entire glass roof. And we both dream of having the time to just read a book.