Chapter HouseBooks

Chapter House Books has traded on Trendle Street in Sherborne since 1988, close to the Abbey and opposite the Alms House, under proprietor Claire Porter. The shop holds more than thirty thousand items across paperbacks, hardbacks and antiquarian stock, running from cheap reading copies to rarer topographical volumes on the history of Great Britain, alongside secondhand CDs, DVDs and sheet music. Only a portion of the stock is catalogued online, so regular browsing turns up titles that never reach the shop's listings on specialist book websites. A booksearch service tracks down specific out-of-print titles for customers on request. Attached to the shop, the Sanctuary Coffee Shop opens onto a private courtyard, giving browsers somewhere to sit with a coffee between the shelves. The shop buys as well as sells, and ships orders worldwide.