ABOUT ME
Peter Cox had a love of books from an early age, collecting books on family holidays in Sheringham, a good source of which was, Major Dunn's general shop in Station Road.
After moving to Sheringham in 1972 Peter attended many local auctions and jumble sales and ran a stall on the local Saturday market. The success of the stall, only hampered by weather in winter months, prompted moving to a hired hall, every bank holiday weekend, with a full stock of 10,000 books. Following further successes this began the search of a more suitable and permanent premises with which to open a shop in Sheringham.
At the end of 1983 the opportunity arose to purchase 19, St. Peters Road, Sheringham, which was only yards from the site of the North Norfolk Railway, a steam attraction visited by 100's of 1000's of people each year.
After completing renovations to the building was opened in two rooms on the ground floor at Easter 1984 with a stock of 10,000 books. By 1987 Peter closed his window cleaning business and set up the bookshop to become the sole source of income to support his growing family.
Over recent years stock has increased to 25,000 books and the shop has expanded to cover the whole of the ground floor, a total of 4 rooms separated by hallways filled with books in 11 aisles. There is also a reserve of a similar amount to replace sold books, kept safe in storage. The stock caters for all readers, both casual and book lovers, across a wide range of interests from paperbacks starting at £1 to rare collectors books at £100.
Peter has gained an enormous amount of knowledge about books in over 40 years of trading. In that time he has bought and sold one million books. Peter has always made himself approachable and ready to share his knowledge with customers and regulars from all over Britain who between them visit Sheringham several times each year. The customers have stayed loyal, many of them, bought books from right back when he had the market stall 40 years ago.
Many customers have commented:
“The best bookshop I have ever been in.”
Second hand bookshops are disappearing from high streets at an alarming rate due to the current economic situation, but Peter remains hopeful people will continue to visit Peter's Bookshop, so it remains one of the best reasons why it is worth visiting Sheringham at any time of the year.