Baggins BookBazaar

Baggins Book Bazaar fills a run of interconnected rooms at 19 High Street, Rochester, and is marketed as England's largest secondhand and rare bookshop, holding around 100,000 titles arranged by subject across science, crime, art and biography sections. The shop takes its name from Bilbo Baggins of Tolkien's The Hobbit. It was founded in 1986 by rare book dealer Paul Minet, who died a decade ago; Godfrey George, now 74, has managed the shop day to day for the full forty years since. Around 1,000 books change hands each month, from paperbacks to collectable first editions. It occupies a single High Street unit rather than operating additional branches, and George has said the business has survived partly through supportive landlords willing to hold rents steady. He has said he plans to retire and hand the shop to a buyer with a genuine interest in books. It opens daily, alongside Rochester's other independent booksellers and antique shops.