Where to buy used books in Durham, North East England

Updated 20/10/2026

Durham, the cathedral and university city in North East England (not Durham in North Carolina), packs much of its second-hand book hunting into the few streets around the Town Hall on Market Place. The covered Market Hall next door holds Verdigris Books, a stall that changed hands in April 2026, and a few steps away the Prince Bishops shopping centre houses People's Bookshop, a co-operative selling used and new titles, along with a St Cuthbert's Hospice shop. Oxfam sits on Elvet Bridge, the hospice has a second branch up Claypath, and Crook Hall, a walk north along the river, keeps a National Trust room of second-hand books. All prices below are in British pounds.

Out of the centre, Age UK County Durham runs a superstore on the Belmont industrial estate to the east, the Durham Christian Partnership keeps a community shop in Framwellgate Moor to the north, and the hospice has a double shop in Langley Moor to the south-west and another in Crook, out in the Wear Valley. Chester-le-Street, the market town some five miles north, adds the volunteer-run shop of Books and Bread for Kenya on Front Street.

One warning before you search. In October 2026 the address peoplesbookshop.co.uk served a casino site rather than the bookshop, so follow the shop through its Facebook page and its Ticket Tailor listings instead.

Spot map

The best spots

Co-operative bookshop (second-hand and new)

People's Bookshop

Unit 19, Prince Bishops Place, High St, Durham DH1 3UJ

On Friday 23 October 2026 the Northumbrian dialect author Dr Heather Laurence is due to read from her new novel at this radical bookshop, according to its Ticket Tailor page, with £5 tickets covering drinks and doors at 6:30pm. The shop started out in an attic on Saddler Street and has moved to Unit 19 of the Prince Bishops centre, under 200 yards south-east of the Town Hall, where its page on the centre's site offers affordable used books next to new publications, plus collections of local and labour history. That page also says volunteers back a shop manager and that the business has registered with the Financial Conduct Authority as a Community Benefit Society.

Hours: Mon 11am–3pm, Tue–Sat 10am–5pm, Sun 11am–3pmWebsite

Second-hand book stall (Market Hall)

Verdigris Books

Market Place, Durham DH1 3NJ (Market Hall)

Science fiction is the speciality named on the market's trader page for this stall in the indoor Market Hall beside the Town Hall, where everything on the shelves is second-hand. The Northern Echo, writing on 12 April 2026, put its opening on Friday 3 April, when a 27-year-old from nearby Brancepeth, who had been volunteering at another Durham bookshop, took over from Book Emporium after more than 30 years and a retirement. Visit Monday to Saturday, since the hall closes on Sundays and the stall keeps the same timetable; the paper's account of the stock covers fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays.

Hours: Market Hall hours: Mon–Sat 9am–4:30pmWebsite

Second-hand bookshop (National Trust)

Crook Hall second-hand bookshop

Crook Hall, Frankland Lane, Sidegate, Durham DH1 5SZ

Every sale of the pre-loved books in Crook Hall's Jacobean Room helps the National Trust look after the gardens, an eight-minute walk north of Market Place along Framwelgate Waterside. The Trust's calendar for Tuesday 20 October 2026 gives the bookshop a 10am start and a 3:30pm close, a shorter day than the gardens and medieval hall, which run until 5pm, and the shop trades on every day the gardens open. The Garden Gate Café is free to walk into, while garden entry is £10 for an adult (£11 with Gift Aid), with a quarter off for anyone holding a valid bus ticket.

Website

Charity shop (Oxfam)

Oxfam Shop Durham

18 Elvet Bridge, Durham DH1 3AA

On Elvet Bridge, roughly 190 yards south-east of Market Place, a general Oxfam whose own Facebook page is titled Oxfam Durham Books, Music, Homewares. On Thursday 12 June 2025 that page asked for donations, saying bookshelves in homes everywhere were crying out for books and that the team's job was to re-home once-read copies. Oxfam's listing for the branch has no timetable, just the number to ring, 0191 384 7440, and People's Bookshop is barely 40 yards away.

Website

Kenya aid charity shop

Books and Bread for Kenya

144 Front Street, Chester-le-Street DH3 3AY

In Chester-le-Street, about 5.3 miles north of Durham's Market Place, volunteers alone staff this Front Street shop, which the Christian charity behind it, registered in 2008, calls its main source of income for two orphanages, a rescue centre, a hospital and villages in Kenya. Anyone bringing bags can use the bright blue back door on the Old Market Hall car park, reached from Main's Park Road, and the charity's website, in a copy the Internet Archive kept in May 2026, puts books ahead of clothing, children's toys, bric-a-brac, DVDs and CDs in the donations it welcomes. Plan around Tuesday, the one weekday it stays closed.

Hours: Mon 10am–4pm, Wed–Sat 10am–4pmWebsite

All spots by type

Charity shops

Charity shop (St Cuthbert's Hospice)

St Cuthbert's Hospice, Claypath

93 Claypath, Durham DH1 1RG

About 130 yards east of the Town Hall on Claypath, the local hospice's city shop has a branch page, already worded this way when archived in April 2026, noting that it has been called 'The Selfridges of the North East' for the designer labels that turn up on the rails. Books are listed there with the footwear, jewellery, homeware and china, and toys and games for children complete the mix. The hospice says every pound its shops raise goes straight to patient care.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9:30am–5pmWebsite

Charity shop (St Cuthbert's Hospice)

St Cuthbert's Hospice, Prince Bishops

Prince Bishops Place, Durham DH1 3UL

Some 60 yards from People's Bookshop inside the same shopping centre, the hospice's second city-centre branch promises designer treasure alongside the usual bargains. Its page, matching what the Wayback Machine stored in April 2026, lists books and toys among second-hand clothes, accessories, bric-a-brac and small pieces of furniture. Unlike the Claypath shop, it also trades on Sundays, from 10:30am.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9am–5pm, Sun 10:30am–4:30pmWebsite

Charity superstore (Age UK County Durham)

Age UK County Durham Superstore

Calder House, Mandale Park, Belmont Industrial Estate, Durham DH1 1TH

On the Belmont Industrial Estate, some 1.8 miles ENE of Market Place, the local charity Age UK County Durham fills Calder House with a superstore. Its page, unchanged since a January 2026 snapshot in the Internet Archive, leads its list of stock with books, ahead of bric-a-brac, CDs, DVDs and LPs, children's clothes and toys, curtains and bedding, furniture, and adult clothing and shoes. Takings there and at the charity's Hidden Boutique go to older people across the county.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9:30am–5pmWebsite

Charity shop (Durham Christian Partnership)

DCP Community Shop

11-12 Front St, Framwellgate Moor, Durham DH1 5EJ

In Framwellgate Moor, around a mile and a third NNW of Market Place, the Durham Christian Partnership sells clothing, books, toys and household goods here to pay for the County Durham foodbank. The charity's page, which said the same when archived in May 2026, says the shop recycles 50 tonnes of textiles, household goods and books in an average year and opens five days a week. Some of its stock goes online too, on eBay and on Vinted under the name DurhamCP.

Hours: Mon–Fri 9:30am–4:30pmWebsite

Charity shop (St Cuthbert's Hospice)

St Cuthbert's Hospice, Langley Moor

30-31 High St, Langley Moor, Durham DH7 8JW

In Langley Moor, a village nearly two miles south-west of the city, St Cuthbert's Hospice runs two neighbouring units on High Street, a boutique-style clothes shop and a homeware shop. The page for the pair, as archived in March 2026, says the homeware side carries a range of books and toys and an entertainment section, and that both have traded for over 20 years. Donations aren't accepted on Saturdays, and the hospice's Meadowfield furniture store is just up the road.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9am–4pmWebsite

Charity shop (St Cuthbert's Hospice)

St Cuthbert's Hospice, Crook

72 Hope St, Crook DL15 9HT

In Crook, the Wear Valley town about 8 miles west-south-west of Durham, the hospice turned an empty Hope Street unit into a shop in June 2016. Its branch page, as the Internet Archive stored it in February 2026, lists books among new and pre-loved clothing, shoes, accessories, homeware and toys. Donations are welcome all day while it's open.

Hours: Mon–Sat 9:30am–4pmWebsite

Scan before you buy

At every one of these spots, snap the shelf with BiblioScan: the AI identifies each book and shows its real resale price. Walk out with profitable books, not random boxes.

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Local sourcing tips

Several Durham bookshops sell new stock rather than second-hand, so don't plan a used-book round around them: Waterstones on Saddler Street, BookWyrm at stall 12 of the Market Hall, which specialises in LGBTQ+ titles and small presses, Collected on the Riverwalk, which focuses on women writers and runs a café, and the Durham Cathedral Shop. Out in Bishop Auckland, Eiledon Books, founded in 2025, describes a curated range of fiction, local history and an autism and SEN section, with no mention of used books.
Some charity shops round Durham say nothing about books on their own pages. St Cuthbert's Hospice describes its Chester-le-Street, Spennymoor and Langley Park branches without naming any, and the British Heart Foundation page for 79 North Road carries the same stock sentence as its Sunderland branch. The Durham Antiques Cooperative at The Old Curio in Sherburn Hill lists antiques, furniture, retro pieces and curios, but not books.
Two car boots near Durham publish no dates ahead. Nobles Promotions holds a Sunday-afternoon sale on Beamish Road outside Chester-le-Street, by the A693, and says its outdoor sites run from March to October, without publishing any dates or saying anything about books. Willington Carboot, at Lowfield Farm on the A690 towards Crook, points to its social media pages for whether a given Sunday goes ahead.
Free and online options exist too. GET Free Books, run by the Global Educational Trust, gives books away entirely free of charge from Unit 4 of St Cuthbert's Walk in Chester-le-Street, though the trust publishes no opening times for it. County Durham Libraries sells withdrawn, surplus stock to members through Library Online, with collection from any council library, and posted a reminder about it on 14 December 2025; expect library stamps and wear.
The PBFA's fair listings carry no Durham date. Its nearest fair is held at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington, well beyond the city, where the 2026 edition charged £1 at the door, and the association's page for the next one gives Saturday 8 May 2027.
In the city centre everything bunches together. From Verdigris in the Market Hall it's under 200 yards to People's Bookshop and Oxfam, about 40 yards apart, passing the Prince Bishops hospice shop on the way; the Claypath branch is roughly 110 yards from that one, and Crook Hall lies about 650 yards north of the Market Hall.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I find cheap used books in Durham?

Start with the hospice shops on Claypath and in Prince Bishops, the Oxfam on Elvet Bridge and the Verdigris stall in the Market Hall, all a short walk apart. Further out, the Age UK superstore at Belmont lists books first among its stock and the DCP Community Shop in Framwellgate Moor sells them to fund a foodbank. If you hold a County Durham library card, the council's online sale of ex-library copies is another route, and Crook Hall's room of pre-loved books is worth adding when the gardens are open.

Where do I sell used books in Durham?

For donations, Oxfam, the St Cuthbert's Hospice branches, Age UK County Durham, the Durham Christian Partnership and, in Chester-le-Street, Books and Bread for Kenya all accept books. For a cash return, list the titles yourself, whether on Amazon.co.uk, Vinted, eBay.co.uk or Facebook Marketplace. To find out which deserve that effort, let BiblioScan look at a crowded shelf through one photo: it works through the row title by title from the spines and shows a resale estimate for each, so the high-value copies stand apart from the ones you'll hand over at a charity counter.

Which charity shops have books in Durham?

Oxfam on Elvet Bridge runs a Facebook page named for books, music and homewares and appealed for book donations in June 2025. St Cuthbert's Hospice names books on its pages for Claypath, Prince Bishops, Langley Moor and Crook, Age UK County Durham does so for its Belmont superstore, and the Durham Christian Partnership for its Framwellgate Moor shop. Over in Chester-le-Street, the Kenya charity's Front Street shop lists books before anything else it accepts, and the National Trust's bookshop at Crook Hall deals in second-hand books.

Which day is best for book hunting in Durham?

Any weekday but Tuesday, when each stop above that publishes a timetable is trading, though People's Bookshop keeps a shorter day on Mondays. Tuesday is the Chester-le-Street charity's day off, and Saturday loses the Framwellgate Moor shop, which trades weekdays only. Sunday is thin: People's Bookshop opens for four hours from 11am and the hospice shop in Prince Bishops from 10:30am, Crook Hall's bookshop opens if the gardens do, and the Market Hall and the other shops with published hours stay shut; Oxfam's own listing gives no times, so phone first.

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Nearby cities

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