Fleur and Gordon Steven founded Batterdale Books in July 1994 to sell second-hand books on railways, canals and industrial history by mail order. Our first slender catalogue appeared in September 1995. It was a very short list of doubtful quality that combined both Railways and Canals in a single list. Remarkably, several customers from those early days became valued customers who still place regular orders.
Over the years we have gradually built up our stocks and the quality of our lists. Separate Railway, Canal and Industrial History lists are now available. Our current Railway List, which we update monthly, consists of twenty pages packed with railway titles. The list would be much longer but twenty pages is the maximum size that can be mailed using a single stamp. All three lists are always available free of charge on request.
Our Internet site was launched in August 2001. This site enables us to reach a far larger number of people and to list a far larger selection of books than we can accommodate on our mail order lists. It also enables regular customers to examine our new stock at the beginning of every month, instead of waiting for our six monthly mail shots.
We could not have succeeded without the numerous collectors who have supported us over the years, and for whom we have tried to maintain a steady flow of interesting books.