In 2008, The Guardian revealed its list of the 10 best bookshops in the world. Scarthin Books from Cromford in Derbyshire was on the list. Quite an achievement for a bookshop in a small rural community.

David Mitchell is the founder and owner of Scarthin. He started the business in 1974 with just a single room of not-so-many books, no experience in bookselling and no staff. He openly admits on the shop’s website that launching the business in Cromford was a gamble. “Stuck away in Cromford… we felt marginalized,” he said.

But he plugged away and steadily grew the business until he had 12 rooms open to the public plus a café, offices, a warehouse and a packing room. Today, people travel a long way to visit Scarthin Books – they’ll combine book-buying (they offer close to 100,000 new, used and antiquarian books) with hiking or cycling or simply soaking up the beautiful Derbyshire countryside.

David Booker from Scarthin Books

Visit the Scarthin Books website, a self-proclaimed “baffling website,” and you’ll see the business described as “a bookshop for the majority of the minorities.” But still it bucks the trend and continues to survive as an independent seller of books.

David described the magic formula as “committed staff, who in the seventies tended to be doing it for fun and pin-money (and) now look to the business for vital family income.” This is a bookshop that specializes in “everything,” according to David, who is now in semi-retirement. David Booker is now general manager of the business.

Earlier in 2015, it appeared the business was on shaky ground after it was discovered that its building needed major structural repairs – four steel columns were required to prevent collapse. A crowd-funding appeal raised £12,000, which guaranteed the shop’s future and ensured the repairs were made.

Browse their books.