It's not that often these days that I get down to London and so the schedule of what you do is always constrained. First,the purpose of the visit, second the friend whom you are staying with and third a specific close acquaintance with whom you have cause to catch up.  

The only other things I managed to squeeze into that was a coffee with a long standing fellow local history buff about how and where I might dispose of my local history collection of north west London and then a pressured sense of the train times.  Today I'm on time, indeed ahead of time and so get to pop into the British Library.

Sitting in your market stall or in the antique fair is only half of the story if what I spend my time doing - the hunting, buying, looking up and researching occupies at least half of your time.

And sometimes the surprises come in unlikely forms.  I had a lot of old books - and here amongst them, unmentioned, unnoticed and largely untouched lay a Victorian scrap book. Nice binding, quality paper and in top condition with gilt edging and I thought untouched at all. Flicking through there as no sign of any annotation or use.

Yes we buy books, antiques, bric-a-brac, maps and more.  But here on behalf of Brockwell Books of Chesterfield is our 'honesty policy'.

Let's try and give you a bit more of an insight of how we operate.  People after ask us to quote, purchase and remove items that they no longer need.  These are often items they have received via another friend or relative or wish to sell for the cash.



