Voewood
Cromer Road
Holt, Norfolk
NR25 6QS
T: +44 (0)1263 715539
M: +44 (0)7990 027140
@: andrew@voewood.com
Simon Finch bought his first rare book aged twelve and knew immediately that he had found his vocation. Following a period of buying books beyond his pocket as a teenager, he went on to read English at Bristol University, during which time he settled all too comfortably into the role of full-time rare book dealer...somewhat to the detriment of his degree.
Simon Finch Rare Books went on to occupy some of London's most distinguished addresses, with shops in Notting Hill and Mayfair that became known not only for the extraordinary range of books and other works on paper they offered, but for the daring juxtaposition and presentation that set the firm apart from many of the more established booksellers in the UK's capital.
The bookshops' catalogues were equally renowned, as much for the attention to concept and design as for the items offered within; the eighth Simon Finch Rare Books catalogue carried a sale value of almost a million pounds and cost over £30,000 to produce, described by catalogue connoisseur James Fergusson as "an astonishing achievement."
From the earliest printed editions of the Renaissance to the wilder shores of the counterculture, no two Simon Finch Rare Books catalogues told quite the same story. Many of those catalogues have today become collectors' items in their own right, traded online long after the books they described have found their homes. The firm handled two copies of Shakespeare's First Folio of 1623 and was involved in the purchase at auction in 1999 of the Archimedes Palimpsest - the earliest known version of the theorem of floating bodies, and a document of singular importance in the history of science and mathematics.
Simon's experience and passion as a bookseller is reflected in the activities of Voewood Rare Books. It is apt that Voewood was built on the book fortune of the colourful Edward Lloyd, publisher of penny dreadfuls, first publisher of Sweeney Todd, pirate of Dickens, and owner of paper mills. Lloyd was a friend of the Morris family, and on his death left his house to Walthamstow, where it now stands as home to the William Morris Collection and Gallery. It was Edward Lloyd's son, the Reverend Percy Lloyd, who commissioned E.S. Prior to build Voewood, making the house, from its very foundations, a monument to the printed word.
Simon hadn't set out to buy the house, but had wanted at some point to exchange, or at least temper, a metropolitan lifestyle with country life. He saw the particulars on a friend's coffee table in 1998 and was compelled to view it: "It had been an old people's home and had been institutionalised for most of its life. There were a lot of fire doors, lifts and so on but I was completely knocked out by the house. I put in an offer and to my horror it was accepted!" Over the following eight years he redecorated and refurnished Voewood with a feel for the original spirit of the house, drawing on his deep interest in the Arts and Crafts movement.
Simon Finch's experience in the world of rare book collecting - from incunabula to avant-garde ephemera, from scientific landmarks to literary counterculture - is the animating spirit of Voewood Rare Books. But his greatest passion remains the most personal aspect of the work: helping collectors build and expand their libraries, alerting them to what appears on the market, and pursuing on their behalf the books that matter. Most of his waking hours are devoted to the search, traversing the length and breadth of Britain on the hunt for elusive titles, viewing collections, attending auctions and book fairs, before returning to Voewood and the studio in the woods he shares with his friend and colleague Andrew Taylor, where the noble work of sourcing, verifying and cataloguing rare books continues.
NB. Voewood have recently, as of November 2025, opened a shop in the local market town of Holt and have plans for a London outlet soon.
