59 stores · curated ORBIS register
British vintage trades by the floor and by the market hall, three storeys in Edinburgh and a century of stalls in Glasgow. Edinburgh's Armstrongs Vintage spreads three floors of retro fashion from the 1920s through the 1990s. Glasgow's The Barras Market has run vintage, antiques, records and food with independent traders since 1921. Caledonia Books shelves secondhand and antiquarian stock in Glasgow since 1986. Wear layers you can strip off, because the good racks run warm.
83-87 Grassmarket, Edinburgh
Edinburgh vintage-clothing shop with three floors of curated retro fashion spanning the 1920s through the 1990s, rather than relying on a subjective 'best' claim.
Best for Three floors of curated retro fashion from the 1920s to 1990s
Cockburn Street, Edinburgh
Victorian shopping street — independent record shops, vintage clothing, quirky boutiques and cafes. The most charming street in the Old Town.
Best for Independent record shops, vintage clothing, quirky boutiques and cafes
9 West Port / Online
The West Port shop is physically divided between a front showroom for independent designers and a back room of hand-picked vintage. Limited editions, reworked garments and one-off pieces mean the stock changes materially between visits.
Best for Unique and ethical women's clothing from independent brands
George Street, New Town
Hamilton & Inches has made and sold jewellery and silver as well as watches in Edinburgh since 1866. Founders Robert Inches and his uncle James Hamilton registered their hallmark with the city's assay office that year. The firm moved from Princes Street to 87 George Street in 1952 and holds a royal warrant as goldsmiths and silversmiths. Its showroom was restored in 2021 with Scottish whinstone and antique bronze.
Best for Fine jewellery and silver
Hamilton & Inches was founded in Edinburgh in 1866 by Robert Inches and his uncle James Hamilton. They registered their hallmark with the Edinburgh assay office on 1 June that year. The firm began on Princes Street and moved in 1952 to 87 George Street in the New Town. That single showroom remains its home. It has held a royal warrant to the British monarch as goldsmiths and silversmiths and as clock and watchmakers for more than 120 years. It also kept the royal clocks in Scotland for generations, a role renewed in 2010 as silversmiths and clock specialists to the Queen. Robert Inches helped found the city's association of goldsmiths and watchmakers in 1903 to keep shoddy goods off the market. The company passed to his son Edward. Asprey acquired it in 1992, and a management buyout in 1998 returned it to independent hands. Beyond jewellery and silver, and the watch trade, it makes sporting trophies, among them the Scottish Open and the Lanark Silver Bell. Queen Elizabeth II visited in 2016 to mark 150 years of business. The showroom was restored in 2021, clad in Scottish whinstone outside with curved glass set in antique bronze within.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Harlequin Antiques is listed in Edinburgh as an antiques; its official website and supplied OpenStreetMap place record provide the public-door evidence.
Best for Antiques
151 West Port, Edinburgh
Edinburgh's tailor for alterations, repairs, and bespoke menswear. Family-run since the 1950s — kilts, suits, and vintage restoration.
Best for Kilts, suits, and vintage restoration
4 Haddington Place, Edinburgh
Tiny independent bookshop and typewriter repair — poetry, small press, zines, and vintage machines. The most characterful bookshop in Edinburgh.
Best for Poetry, small press, zines, and typewriter repair in Edinburgh's most characterful bookshop
Exeter / United Kingdom
Sobeys is an independent shop on Gandy Street in Exeter selling vintage and reworked clothing.
Best for Vintage and reworked clothing
Exeter / United Kingdom
The Real McCoy in Exeter's McCoy's Arcade sells vintage clothing and accessories from the 1900s to the 2000s.
Best for Vintage clothing, 1900s to 2000s
Fore Street, Topsham, Exeter
Set across three floors of a 17th-century building at 27 Fore Street, this shop deals in secondhand and out-of-print books, with strengths in Devon and West Country topography, social history, archaeology and English literature. Owner Lily Neal runs a book search service and buys books from customers.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian West Country titles
West End
Family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop on Great Western Road at Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End, established 1986, spanning two floors with a strong stock of Scottish literature, history and philosophy titles.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books since 1986
Caledonia Books has traded as a family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop since 1986, on Great Western Road near Kelvinbridge in Glasgow's West End. The shop is known for a densely packed interior - books arranged in rows on the floor, piled in boxes, and stacked to the ceiling across two floors - with particular strength in Scottish, literature, art, history and philosophy titles. Stock is almost entirely secondhand and sold at modest prices, with genuinely rare or antiquarian volumes the exception rather than the rule.
City Centre
Independent record shop at 34 Dundas Street, Glasgow, near Queen Street Station; buys and sells new and secondhand vinyl and CDs across rock, metal, punk, soul, hip hop, reggae and jazz, with a strong Scottish-artist selection.
Best for Scottish vinyl, new releases and used records
Love Music is an independent record shop at 34 Dundas Street in Glasgow, just beside Queen Street Station. It buys and sells CDs and vinyl LPs seven days a week, stocking new releases alongside secondhand stock, with a particular strength in rock music and a stated bias toward Scottish acts. Sections cover metal, punk, reissues, Americana and country rock, soul, hip hop, reggae, jazz, blues, electronica and dance, soundtracks, world music, audiobooks and comedy.
City Centre
Independent secondhand record shop at 51 Oswald Street, Glasgow, established 1984. Sells used vinyl, CDs and DVDs organized alphabetically by genre, plus mail-order sales online.
Best for Secondhand vinyl across genres
Missing Records has operated in Glasgow since 1984, currently trading from 51 Oswald Street in the city centre. It is an independent secondhand shop dealing in used vinyl, CDs and DVDs across genres, with stock organized alphabetically to aid browsing, including limited-edition box sets and collectible pressings. According to long-time customers, the business has gone through several changes in scale over the decades, at one point operating as many as four or five outlets, before consolidating back down to its current single Glasgow shop.
West End
Mixed Up Records is an independent record shop in Glasgow's West End, buying and selling new and secondhand vinyl since 1997. The Otago Lane shop also stocks CDs and DVDs across genres from jazz to punk.
Best for New and secondhand vinyl, CDs and DVDs across every genre
Tucked into Otago Lane in Glasgow's West End, Mixed Up Records has been buying and selling vinyl since 1997, making it one of the city's longer-running independent record shops. The stock runs wide rather than narrow: new pressings and reissues sit alongside secondhand crates spanning blues and jazz through punk, electronic, hip hop, reggae, soul and world music, plus a rotating stack of CDs and DVDs. The shop also buys collections outright, a service it promotes directly to customers looking to sell or downsize, with staff on hand to talk through what's being offered. Seasonal sales - a summer clearance, a dedicated CD sale, a running "back in stock" shelf - keep the browsing changing without turning the shop into a pure bargain bin, and pre-order and new-release sections track current titles from major and independent labels alike. The physical store at 16-22 Otago Lane keeps regular hours, Monday to Saturday, and ships UK orders with free delivery over £75. For a shop operating in a city with no shortage of record stores, the mix of depth (new releases, pre-orders, reissues) and turnover (secondhand stock bought weekly from local sellers) is what keeps regulars coming back rather than just passing through once.
Merchant City
Independent vintage clothing shop founded in the 1990s in Glasgow's Virginia Galleries, now trading from Kings Court on King Street in the Merchant City. Stock includes antique wedding dresses, vintage bowling shoes and retro football tops.
Best for Long-running vintage clothing in Merchant City
Mr Ben Retro Clothing was founded in the 1990s in the Virginia Galleries in central Glasgow, an arcade of independent boutiques in the city's Merchant City district. The shop has since relocated to its current premises at Kings Court, 101 King Street, still within the Merchant City area, and has become one of the longest-running retro and vintage clothing stores in Scotland. Its stock spans an unusually wide range - antique wedding dresses, vintage bowling shoes, retro football shirts, fur coats, denim, jackets, jewellery and woollens - much of it labelled with the era and, in some cases, the origin of the piece.
Merchant City (Kings Court, King Street)
A vintage clothing shop in Kings Court, the courtyard off King Street near the Trongate, stocked with garments from the 1960s through the 1980s. Rails hold jackets, dresses, footwear and accessories alongside period Levi's, Converse and Dr Martens.
Best for 1960s-80s vintage clothing
East End
Glasgow’s historic weekend market of independent vintage, antiques, records, food and specialist traders.Established 1921.
Best for Vintage, antiques, records, and food from independent traders since 1921
Glasgow / United Kingdom
The Glasgow second-hand bookshop Voltaire & Rousseau has packed its Otago Lane rooms in the West End with pre-loved, antiquarian and rare titles. Alongside the walk-in shop, open 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, it runs a full online catalogue spanning first editions to 10-pound paperbacks.
Best for Secondhand-books, antiquarian, rare-books
West End
A family-run secondhand and antiquarian bookshop packed with rare, academic and literary titles.
Best for Secondhand literature, academic books and unexpected editions
Henley-on-Thames / United Kingdom
Way's on Friday Street in Henley-on-Thames is a second-hand bookshop that also deals in rare books.
Best for Rare and second-hand books
Llandudno, North Wales
Pendragon makes its hot chocolate and eating chocolate on site in Llandudno, with a viewing window onto the factory floor built into the museum upstairs that traces 5,000 years of chocolate history. The adjoining shop sells the factory's own bars and drinking chocolate alongside pieces from its collection of vintage chocolate packaging and memorabilia.
Best for Handmade drinking chocolate and factory-made bars
London / Notting Hill
Portobello Road antiques — the facade with hanging signs, vintage jewellery, and the spirit of Notting Hill since the 1960s.
Best for Vintage jewellery, facade, Portobello Road.
London, UK
British fashion brand operating since 1994, with a vintage-inspired, rock-leaning aesthetic spanning leather jackets, distressed knitwear and a muted palette.
Best for Leather Jackets, Vintage
Solaris Dutamas
Carousel is a vintage London-style toy shop at Publika Shopping Gallery in Kuala Lumpur. Giant window displays and life-sized Nutcracker figures front a stock of model airplanes, rocking horses, and toy soldiers.
Best for Vintage London-style toy displays — model airplanes, rocking horses, toy soldiers
Carousel occupies a corner of Publika Shopping Gallery in Kuala Lumpur dressed like a London toy shop from an earlier decade: giant window displays anchor the storefront, with a pair of life-sized Nutcracker figures greeting shoppers at the entrance against a red-and-white color scheme. Inside, the stock leans deliberately old-fashioned rather than chasing whatever's trending in mainstream toy chains, with model airplanes, jack-in-the-box toys, rocking horses, and ranks of toy soldiers sitting alongside more contemporary arts-and-crafts sets, dolls, and jigsaw puzzles. A candy cart near the entrance stocks gourmet treats from Fête Artisan Marshmallow, a local confectioner, giving the shop a secondary pull for browsers who aren't there for toys at all. The approach reads as curated nostalgia rather than a discount toy warehouse: harder-to-find items like specific Nutcracker figures and Schleich animal figurines show up in customer accounts of the shop more often than mass-market plastic. Carousel keeps daily hours, open from 10am to 9pm, and sits on Level G3 of Publika alongside the mall's other specialty retailers. For parents or collectors looking for toys with some visual theatre built into the shopping experience itself, rather than a big-box aisle, Carousel is built specifically around that kind of browsing.
London / Online
South London menswear label founded 2021 by designer Daniel Gayle with partner James Bosley, based in Peckham; named for Gayle's grandparents Denzil and Patrick, built on deadstock fabric, vintage garments and recycled materials.
Best for Modern British menswear
Denzilpatrick is a contemporary menswear label founded in 2021 by designer Daniel Gayle, working with artistic director James Bosley, based in Peckham, south London. The brand's name honors Gayle's grandparents, Denzil and Patrick, and its design language draws on Gayle's own mixed Irish and Jamaican heritage as well as the wider cultural mix of the city where he was raised. Before starting the label, Gayle worked in the design studios of Jonathan Saunders, Philip Lim and Kenzo, and spent roughly six years at Victoria Beckham. Denzilpatrick releases two collections a year and works largely with deadstock fabrics, vintage garments and recycled materials such as leather, polyester and lace.
London, UK
Ghost London launched four decades ago and makes women's contemporary clothing with a vintage feel. Its viscose fabrics are woven exclusively for the label, and its prints are designed in-house each season. Almost every garment is garment dyed, cut oversize in greige cloth and boiled so it shrinks and takes a deeper colour. The finished pieces can be machine washed at 30 degrees.
Best for Garment-dyed viscose dresses and separates with a vintage feel
Ghost London launched four decades ago and now works as an established house for women's contemporary clothing. Its collections keep a contemporary vintage feel, with feminine lines and modern silhouettes alongside signature garment dyed pieces. Every fabric is produced and woven exclusively for the label from viscose yarns, and every print is designed in-house each season in the same vintage-inspired spirit. The garment dye process defines the house. Each piece is first constructed in raw greige cloth and cut several sizes larger than its finished size. The made-up garment is then boiled at high temperature, shrinking as it takes the dye, which gives the viscose a softer, more fluid hand and a deeper colour than piece dyeing. The same process makes the clothes practical to own. Almost every garment, bridal wear included, can be machine washed at 30 degrees or washed by hand, then reshaped while damp and steamed on the reverse if needed. The range runs from tea dresses and slip dresses to separates and knitwear, together with a wedding collection that includes bridesmaid dresses, all sold from the label's own online shop.
Chiltern Street / Marylebone, London
John Simons opened the Ivy Shop in Richmond in 1964 and first labelled the Baracuta G9 a Harrington jacket in 1965. The shop moved to 46 Chiltern Street in Marylebone in 2011 and sells its own collections alongside Baracuta and Paraboot, with Jamieson's of Shetland. Vintage pieces sit with the new stock, as they did at the Covent Garden shop from 1982.
Best for Ivy League menswear, Harrington jackets and Baracuta G9s from the man who named them
John Simons began in 1955 as a window dresser for Cecil Gee, then a prominent name in British menswear. After selling from a market stall in Hackney he opened Clothesville on Mare Street in 1963, a shop that dressed the mod scene. The Ivy Shop followed in Richmond in the summer of 1964. In 1965 Simons recognised the Baracuta G9 as the jacket worn by the character Rodney Harrington, and his shop's label became the first documented use of the term Harrington jacket. The Squire Shop opened on King's Road in 1967 with co-founder Stuart Malloy, and in 1982 J. Simons opened on Russell Street in Covent Garden, early in its approach to selling vintage goods. The storefront moved to No. 46 Chiltern Street in Marylebone in 2011. The rails today mix the house's own collections with Baracuta and J. Press, with G.H. Bass and Paraboot and Jamieson's of Shetland alongside. The shop presents itself as the reference for Ivy League style in Britain, filtered through a mid-century American and European eye, and vintage pieces still hang beside the new stock.
London, UK
London eveningwear label founded in 2013 by designer Hannah Coffin, specializing in hand-sequined and embellished tulle gowns inspired by English gardens and vintage textiles.
Best for Sequins, Occasion Dresses
Needle & Thread was founded in 2013 by British designer Hannah Coffin, who traces her interest in sewing to being given a Singer sewing machine by her grandmother as a child. She studied Fashion and Textiles at Ravensbourne University in London and worked in the fashion industry for roughly a decade before launching her own label. The brand's identifying signature is hand-embellishment - sequin work, embroidery and other applied detailing on tulle and similar fabrics - applied to gowns, day dresses, bridalwear and, more recently, childrenswear, knitwear and loungewear. Coffin remains the brand's founder and CEO, stocked internationally by department stores including Harvey Nichols.
London / United Kingdom
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates.
Best for Hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters and letterpress classes
New North Press is a working letterpress studio in Shoreditch, at 45 Coronet Street, where hand-printed cards, limited-edition posters, books and portfolios come off vintage presses rather than digital plates. The studio's own description sets its terms plainly: it exists to combine "centuries-old craftsmanship with contemporary design ideas," and the type collection backs that up — more than 700 fonts spanning wood type, metal type, and even a 3D-printed letterpress face, kept in working order rather than displayed as artifacts.
Secondary reporting (Standpoint London, British Letterpress) traces the press to 1986, founded by Graham Bignell on New North Road before the move to its current Coronet Street address in 1993 — the name outlived the original street. That continuity matters in a trade where most commercial letterpress equipment was scrapped decades ago; a studio still running the type and the presses, not just collecting them, is the exception rather than the rule in a city the size of London.
The press takes on commissioned print and design work alongside its own limited editions, and runs regular hands-on classes that teach typesetting and printing on the actual equipment rather than a simulation of it. That combination — production, commission work, and open instruction under one roof — is what separates a working letterpress house from a heritage display case.
London / Notting Hill
The world's largest antique market — Saturdays on Portobello Road, vintage jewellery, silver, bric-a-brac, and the carnival energy of Notting Hill.
Best for Antiques, vintage jewellery, Saturday market, carnival energy.
Portobello Road Market is a London street market whose appeal comes from the contrast between its sections rather than one category. The official market history stretches back 160 years and describes hundreds of traders dealing in old and new goods. Antiques and bric-a-brac remain central while fashion and food widen the mix and crafts appear beside books and music. On Fridays and Saturdays, stalls extend along Portobello Road and around the corner into Golborne Road. The antiques section includes temporary pitches and shops while arcades add individual dealer booths. Published categories begin with textiles and ceramics, then extend to fine art and jewellery. Silver and china are represented alongside antiquarian books. Saturday brings a dense concentration of UK trader stalls, while Friday also supports a defined antiques trade. Other parts of the market serve produce and prepared food while new goods share space with second-hand fashion. Portobello is therefore a long, varied market street rather than solely an antiques destination. Different merchandise and trading formats occupy distinct stretches of the route, with permanent shops and open-air stalls both part of the operation.
Bloomsbury, London / Online
Present & Correct sells new and vintage stationery from its Bloomsbury shop, alongside paper goods of its own. The business began with market trading before launching online in 2009 and opening a Clerkenwell shop in 2012. Its larger Bloomsbury premises followed in 2023, continuing the interest in office supplies and printed ephemera.
Best for New and vintage stationery in Bloomsbury
Present & Correct's story begins with occasional market trading off Brick Lane in 2005, before its online shop launched in 2009. A Clerkenwell shop followed in 2012, giving the business a permanent setting for its stationery and paper goods. The move to larger Bloomsbury premises came in 2023, with an interior by Architecture for London.
The stock combines new office supplies with original vintage stationery and printed ephemera from different countries. Some products are made for the shop itself, while others are found and selected during its sourcing work. Writing tools sit alongside ways to organise a desk through trays and other storage accessories. Paper goods extend from cards and labels to calendars and printed material collected for its graphic interest.
That combination gives the shop two practical uses: replacing a working desk accessory or looking for an unusual paper object. Neither requires treating the stock as a single period collection because it deliberately mixes new pieces with older ones. The Bloomsbury shop continues that approach in a physical setting where the range can be considered together.
London / Online
Rivet & Hide sells Japanese selvedge denim and heritage menswear from 11-12 Old Burlington Street in Mayfair, where it moved in December 2024. A Manchester store trades at 59 Thomas Street. Founded in 2012 as a by-appointment service, it stocks small-batch jeans from makers such as Iron Heart and Pure Blue Japan alongside leather jackets and bench-made boots. Jewellery and a vintage hemming service round out the offer.
Best for Japanese selvedge denim with expert fittings and hemming in Mayfair and Manchester
Rivet & Hide began in 2012 as a by-appointment service built around Japanese selvedge denim. The company behind it was incorporated in London on 15 November 2011. It opened a London shop in 2014 and added a Manchester store at 59 Thomas Street in the Northern Quarter in 2019. In December 2024 it moved its London flagship from Fitzrovia to 11-12 Old Burlington Street in Mayfair, a short walk from Savile Row and three times the size of the old shop. The stock-in-trade is small-batch jeans and jackets from Japanese mills and makers, among them Iron Heart and Pure Blue Japan, Momotaro Jeans and Studio D'Artisan. Around the denim sit made-to-order leather jackets and flannel shirts, together with bench-made boots from Viberg and Tricker's. Knitwear comes from Dehen 1920 and hand-cast jewellery from Good Art Hlywd. Much of what it sells is strictly small run. The shop favours brands that build modern styles with old-school construction. Both stores offer a vintage hemming service. The shop describes its style of service as unhurried and knowledgeable rather than a hard sell.
London / Online
East London footwear brand with Belgian stockists — vulcanized canvas sneakers inspired by vintage workwear and subculture.
Best for Vulcanized canvas workwear sneakers
Manchester / United Kingdom
A family art and craft shop trading since the 1880s, its 37 Lever Street store and website carry over 30,000 products from watercolours and sketchbooks to David Shrigley mugs. Vintage photobooths and craft kits round out a stock spanning traditional handicrafts and design-led homeware.
Best for Art supplies, craft materials, homeware, gifts, photobooths
High Street, Burford
An antiques centre set in the historic George, a former Burford inn, where several dealers share rooms of period furniture, silver, ceramics, jewellery and pictures. The timber-framed building gives the centre its warren of display spaces.
Best for Period antiques from multiple dealers
Southampton / United Kingdom
Beatnik Emporium is a Southampton vintage and quirky clothing shop that has traded since 1992, starting as a festival stall before settling on Above Bar Street in 2005. The shop still sells at festivals like Glastonbury alongside its year-round storefront.
Best for Vintage and quirky clothing from a Southampton shop born at festivals in 1992
Earlsdon
Beer Gonzo runs a bottle shop and lambic bar on Earlsdon Street, stocking sour and wild ales, barrel-aged bottles and vintage rarities alongside natural wines and artisan ciders. The same selection sells through its online shop, with glassware, hot sauce and bar snacks filling out the shelves.
Best for Sour, wild and barrel-aged beers
Broadway
Cheltenham House Antiques trades in period English silver, furniture and paintings from a Broadway showroom. The dealer specialises in antique silver alongside decorative works of art.
Best for Antique silver and furniture
Lincoln, England
Daniella Draper founded her jewellery business in 2009 and still runs it with her mother Della and sister Holly. Pieces are handmade in England from recycled solid gold and sterling silver, set with upcycled or restored antique stones. The Lincoln flagship stands at 260 High Street near the cathedral, with further shops in Beverley, Cleethorpes and Grimsby. Charms, alphabet letters and personalised work sit alongside engagement rings.
Best for Handcrafted-in-England ID bracelets and jewellery
Daniella Draper founded her jewellery business in 2009 and it has stayed independent and family-run since. Her mother Della and her sister Holly work in it. The brand describes itself as a tight family unit. Draper studied jewellery design at Central Saint Martins in London and has been refining the process since the business started. The pieces are handmade in England from fully recycled solid gold and sterling silver, with upcycled gemstones and restored antique stones worked back into new settings. Collections run through charms, alphabet letters, scallop shells, stars, St Christopher medals, engagement rings. The Lincoln shop is the flagship and stands at 260 High Street, a short walk from Lincoln Cathedral. Three other shops trade at Toll Gavel in Beverley, Sea View Street in Cleethorpes and Victoria Street in Grimsby, and the Beverley shop marked ten years in 2026. Draper now lives in the Lake District, and the brand ties its designs to the English coastline and countryside. In-store launches bring her back to Lincoln, including a scarf collection release held there on 17 September 2026.
Moreton In Marsh / United Kingdom
Deco Interiors fills its Windsor House showroom on Moreton-in-Marsh High Street with twentieth-century design, from Art Deco glass and sculpture to vintage jewellery and furniture sourced across the UK. Proprietor Andy Green also lists much of the stock for sale through the shop's online catalogue.
Best for Antiques, art deco, vintage jewellery, furniture
Berkshire
At 88 High Street, this long-standing shop stacks secondhand and antiquarian books alongside prints and small collectibles sold under its Eton Treasures name. It sits among the antique dealers and tailors that line the pedestrian stretch running down toward Windsor Bridge.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books, prints, and small collectibles at 88 High Street
St Edward's Passage
Founded by French emigre Gustave David in 1896, G. David trades in antiquarian and secondhand books, remainders and fine bindings from St Edward's Passage. The shop buys private libraries and single volumes and is still run by successors of the original market-stall bookseller.
Best for David trades in antiquarian and secondhand books
Gustave David, a thirty-six-year-old Parisian, began buying and selling books on the Cambridge Market in 1896. As trade grew he opened a bookshop with his son Hubert David in St Edward's Passage, where the business still stands. The market stall ceased trading in 1981, but the shop continued to flourish in its passage off the market square. Today the firm is run by Gustave's great grandson David Asplin and his business partner Neil Adams. David joined in 1968 and Neil in 1979, and between them they count over 100 years of bookselling in Cambridge. The stock ranges across antiquarian books, including first editions of works by Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin, and natural history and travel books with engravings. Second hand books fill the general shelves, and new books are sold at reduced prices. Antiquarian prints and maps form a further department, with a large collection of original engravings of Cambridge and its colleges and thousands of prints and maps on other subjects. The shop remains a meeting place for bibliophiles from many countries, and it continues to buy single volumes and whole libraries from private sellers.
Church Street, Inverness, Scotland
Leakey's Bookshop has been family-owned and run in Inverness since 1979, and is billed as Scotland's largest secondhand bookshop, dealing in used and antiquarian books, maps and prints. It occupies a former church on Church Street, with a wood-burning stove at the center of the reading floor.
Best for Secondhand and antiquarian books, maps, prints
Sparkenhoe Farm, Upton (Leicestershire/Warwickshire border, near Hinckley)
David and Jo Clarke revived farmhouse Red Leicester at Sparkenhoe Farm in 2005, 49 years after the last local maker had stopped, on land that had made the cheese from 1745 to 1875. The cloth-bound Sparkenhoe wheels are still made from the farm's own Holstein-Friesian herd, aged six to seven months, with a Vintage held back for eighteen.
Best for Traditional cloth-bound Red Leicester cheese
Derry, Northern Ireland
Little Acorns Bookstore stocks new, rare, and secondhand books with a focus on Irish subjects, authors, and publishers, and calls itself the largest independent bookstore in the north west of Ireland. It also houses Ireland's only typewriter museum.
Best for Irish-interest and secondhand books
Moreton In Marsh / United Kingdom
Established in 1979 on Moreton-in-Marsh High Street, this Cotswold antiques centre gathers around twenty dealers across a warren of furnished units and display cabinets. Shoppers browse everything from Georgian oak and militaria to vinyl records, weighing scales and costume jewellery under one roof.
Best for Antiques, collectables, vintage, furniture
Bridge Street Row
Lowe & Sons has traded on Chester's Bridge Street Row since 1770, dealing in antique and pre-owned jewellery, silver, and pocket watches alongside restored period pieces. The family firm, now run under Powells, keeps a workshop for repairs, valuations, and the remodelling of older gold and gemstone jewellery.
Best for Antique and pre-owned jewellery
High Street, Burford
A long-established dealer specialising in antique sporting equipment and memorabilia, from vintage tennis racquets, cricket bats and croquet sets to golf clubs, oars and treen, alongside antique library furniture. The firm supplies collectors, interior designers and film productions internationally from its High Street premises.
Best for Antique sporting equipment and memorabilia
Haddington Place, Leith Walk
Established in 1957, McNaughtan's is a Scottish second-hand and antiquarian bookshop, at Haddington Place near the top of Leith Walk. Its gallery space hosts Typewronger Books, which deals in new titles and vintage typewriters.
Best for Antiquarian and second-hand books
UK
The archive obsessive — Everest jackets and military reproductions from a 4,000-piece vintage collection.
Best for Vintage military polos; Heritage workwear repro; Vintage military, workwear; Accessible vintage, military
Polperro / United Kingdom
Based in Corner Cottage on the Quayside in Polperro, Ocean's Studio is the largest South West stockist of Moorcroft art pottery, alongside East African paintings and antique ceramics sourced through a vetted network of artists. Visitors can browse in person or reserve pieces through the online shop, with UK-wide courier delivery available.
Best for Art & Ceramics, Moorcroft Pottery, Paintings
UK
Family-run label founded 2009 by Joe Oldfield, reproducing 1920s-40s British menswear and womenswear patterns using British cloth made in the UK, including Fair Isle knitwear from a family workshop in Shetland.
Best for Vintage Style, Workwear
Oldfield Outfitters was founded in 2009 by Joe Oldfield, who built the label around his family's textile history rather than a general nostalgia for vintage style. His grandfather worked his entire career for Courtaulds Textiles, starting as a tea boy at 18, with his service interrupted only by World War II, during which he commanded a fleet of minesweepers. That family connection to British textile manufacturing shaped Oldfield's approach: rather than sourcing vintage-look clothing from wherever was cheapest, the label set out to recreate specific 1920s-40s British patterns using cloth woven in Britain and garments made in the UK. The first piece the fledgling company produced was a knitted sweater hand-made over three weeks by an elderly woman named Dorothy Massingham, which became the pattern the young factory then worked from. Oldfield's Fair Isle sweaters are made by a family-run business in Shetland, tying the brand's supply chain to the same small-scale regional manufacturers associated with the original garments it reproduces, rather than a mass contract factory. The label covers both men's and women's vintage-pattern clothing, positioned around authenticity of construction and cloth rather than costume-style vintage reproduction.
Nottingham, UK
Paul Smith's Nottingham flagship occupies Willoughby House at 20 Low Pavement, a Grade II listed townhouse built in 1738 for the Honourable Rothwell Willoughby. It opened as a shop in 2005. Arranged over five storeys and 2000 square feet, it stands just over 100 yards from Paul's first three-by-three metre shop on Byard Lane. Antique furniture and pieces from Paul's own art collection line the rooms.
Best for Classic British tailoring with playful colour.
Paul Smith opened a three-metre-square shop in Nottingham in 1970, open Fridays and Saturdays only, stocked with what he liked and couldn't find elsewhere. From it grew British fashion's most reliable export and its longest-running independent: Sir Paul still owns his company, still designs, still fills his Covent Garden office with the bicycles, robots and art postcards that famously feed the collections.
The formula he named "classic with a twist" is deceptively hard: proper English tailoring — he trained himself via evening classes and his wife Pauline Denyer's couture training — detonated by one joke: a flash of multi-stripe lining, a naked-lady cuff print, a photographic floral. The signature multi-stripe became one of fashion's most recognizable patterns without a logo in sight.
Japan adopted him at national scale — hundreds of shops — and the Mayfair flagship at Albemarle Street trades behind a famous cast-iron facade. Knighted in 2000, Smith remains menswear's best argument that wit is a form of quality.
The Bluecoat, School Lane, Liverpool
Founded in 1971 and long a proving ground for Liverpool's post-punk and indie scenes, Probe Records now trades from a unit inside the Bluecoat arts centre in the city centre. It stocks new and secondhand vinyl across genres and remains a fixture of the city's music heritage, having outlasted several changes of address over five decades.
Best for Vinyl records and Liverpool music heritage
Elsley House, High Street
Opened December 2016 in Elsley House, Chipping Campden, this studio builds fabrics, china and stationery around Sam Wilson's lino-cut prints of Cotswold wildlife, sold alongside vintage furniture and a made-to-measure curtain and blind service.
Best for Cotswold lino-cut prints, fabrics, china and homeware
Sam Wilson Studio opened its first shop in December 2016 in Elsley House on Chipping Campden's High Street, built around designer Sam Wilson's own lino-cut printmaking, drawn from the hills and hedgerows around her hillside studio in the nearby hamlet of Saintbury. Those linoprints - birds, botanicals, rural scenes rendered in the bold, textured line typical of the technique - get adapted across fabric, china, and stationery, then made up by specialist UK manufacturers: textiles from Lancashire, ceramics from Stoke-on-Trent. The Chipping Campden shop carries the full range, tea towels through cushions and lamps, alongside vintage furniture pieces that don't come from the print collection at all, and runs a made-to-measure curtain and blind service using the same fabrics sold by the yard. The studio has since added shops in Stow-on-the-Wold (2018) and Bath (2019), but Chipping Campden remains the original and the one built around the made-to-measure trade. The business has picked up regional recognition, named Best Rural Retail Business and Best Rural Creative, Artisan or Crafts Business at the South West Rural Business Awards. It reads as a working print studio with a shopfront attached rather than a homeware retailer that commissions patterns out - the same hand-cut lino blocks that start each design are still Wilson's own.
UK / Japan
British streetwear brand founded 2003 by Julian Dunkerton, evolving from his 1985 Cheltenham shop Cult Clothing; known for faux-Japanese graphics like the Osaka 6 tee fused with vintage American and British styling. Headquartered in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
Best for Fusion polos, vintage graphics
Superdry traces to Cult Clothing, a shop Julian Dunkerton co-founded in Cheltenham in 1985. In 2003 Dunkerton, together with James Holder and Theo Karpathios, developed Superdry as a new in-house brand, opening the first standalone Superdry store in London's Covent Garden in 2004. The brand's signature look - bold Japanese-style typography layered with American vintage and British tailoring cues - grew out of a trip to Tokyo; the Superdry name itself was reportedly lifted from a mistranslated label on a Japanese beer bottle rather than any authentic Japanese source. The company listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2010 and expanded into 157 countries at its peak. Dunkerton returned as CEO in April 2019 to refocus the brand on design and product quality.
Moreton In Marsh / United Kingdom / Online
Founded in 2021 by Toby Taylor and based in Blockley near Moreton-in-Marsh, Taylors restores and sells British antique furniture with a country and farmhouse leaning. Chests of drawers, dining tables and mirrors are photographed room-by-room and shipped nationwide through the shop's online store.
Best for Antiques, furniture, farmhouse decor, restoration
6-7 Beer Cart Lane, Canterbury
The Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing in secondhand, antiquarian and rare titles, with prints, maps and ephemera among the stock. A member of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association and ILAB, it is Canterbury's principal antiquarian bookseller.
Best for Chaucer Bookshop occupies a period building on Beer Cart Lane dealing
Windsor / United Kingdom
Windsor Vintage is a bricks-and-mortar antiques and collectibles shop in Windsor's historic town centre, personally curating Art Deco pieces, West and East German pottery, and militaria. Customers can browse and buy the same inventory in person or through the shop's online store.
Best for Art Deco, German pottery, militaria and collectibles
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