Tucked away on a little street in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, WychWood Books houses a glorious array of secondhand and antiquarian volumes. Owned by sister and brother team Lucy and Henry Baggott, WychWood is a treasure trove for Julie and Frank von Zerneck, owners of Portrait of a Bookstore.

"Frank and I love the wonderful old Cotswold stone front of WychWood Books and the wood door that draws you in because though the building itself may be over three hundred years old, the sign above screams "YOUTH". When you enter and see Lucy, who can’t be a day over 26, look up from the book she is reading behind the desk, you are not surprised to learn she is the proprietress. Nor are you taken aback when later you meet her brother, the proprietor, (older? younger?) carrying a tottering stack of books up a winding staircase. There are nooks and crannies everywhere you turn, but not a cobweb to be found. It’s spotlessly clean, the walls are painted fresh white, and the black well-crafted wood bookcases hold a treasure of secondhand and antiquarian books in so many different categories that it leaves you breathless. The lighting is so skillfully done that you don't really notice it except for the fact that you can actually see every glorious spine and its title. My favorites though are the magnificent book sets all lined up so perfectly, 10 volumes of crimson leather bound Dickens from the 1800’s, or 18 leather forest green volumes of Shakespeare from even earlier. Last year my husband found a set of 8 magnificent books on musical instruments from 1610 that we bought, carried home to our store and sold to the wife of a well know rock star who gave him the leather bound copies for his 50th birthday."