Brockwell Books of Chesterfield

New to the Market Hall

Words: Ed Fordham

We must start with a thank you - the transition from outdoor market stall to indoor Shop Unit has not been easy but the support and encouragement from local shoppers has been just stunning. If you did a list of all of the commercial outlets that any self-respecting town should have, it is now clear to me that a second-hand Bookshop is on the list. A second-hand bookshop standing alongside with a Post Office, Butchers, Pub, Pet Food Store and a decent chippy. Chesterfield has many of these, but now can boast that it has once again a second-hand bookshop.

What does this actually mean? It tells visitors to the town that we value learning, reading, literature and the arts. It means we can be a place that values poetry, prose, research and the sheer erudite craft of authors and editors. It means that the skip or the bonfire need never again be the excuse of any probate estate.

Crucially, it means you have somewhere warm, reassuring and quirky to browse away a peaceful 2, 15 or 30 minutes perusing our shelves stuffed with books you didn’t know existed and didn’t realise you might want. Indeed, at Brockwell Books we pride ourselves on only stocking things that you really don’t need.

Everything we sell could be deemed unnecessarythe obscure or eccentric titles, the antiquarian book now a curio, the outdated manual for typewriters and much and many more... but that is the whole point. All of our lives are richer for peripheral knowledge and it is a cause we pride ourselves in championing. And we believe Chesterfield deserves a second-hand bookshop.