Barter Books

Established in 1981 by Mary and Stuart Manley, Barter Books is one of the largest and most famous secondhand bookstores in Britain. It is housed inside the magnificent, Grade II-listed Victorian railway station designed by architect William Bell for the North Eastern Railway, which opened in 1887 and closed to passengers in 1968. Retaining its grand architectural features—including high arched glass ceilings, waiting rooms, open log fires, and model railways running along the upper ledges—the shop holds hundreds of thousands of volumes. Barter Books achieved global cultural fame in 2000 when Mary Manley discovered a forgotten, original World War II Ministry of Information poster reading "Keep Calm and Carry On" in a box of old books, subsequently rescuing, reproducing, and popularizing a cultural phenomenon.