Ambra Books, Bristol · West Country books, maps & manuscripts bought and sold
Ambra Books – Antiquarian & Secondhand West Country Books
Books, maps, plans, manuscripts, documents, engravings and ephemera relating to Cornwall and the West Country – bought and sold.
Ambra Books was founded by Ivor Cornish in 1972 and is run with Lesley Aitchison from Redland, Bristol. It specialises in antiquarian and secondhand books on Cornwall, Bristol, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, and has been listed on Cornwall Online since the earliest days of the website.
Ambra Books buys and sells antiquarian and secondhand books relating to the West Country and issues regular catalogues. They cover a wide range of subjects for each county, including:
- history – local, industrial, mining and social
- topography, archaeology and geology
- genealogy, parish registers and directories
- agriculture and natural history
For Cornwall, the catalogues regularly include the major county histories by Borlase, Carew, Gilbert, Lysons, Maclean, Norden, Polsue and Polwhele, as well as town, village and parish histories, directories, parish registers, civil war tracts, and works on the Cornish language and folklore.
Lesley Aitchison’s catalogues of antique maps and manuscripts include manuscript maps and plans, scarce printed maps of Cornwall by Martyn, Greenwood and the early Ordnance Survey, and documents relating to places, businesses and mines.
You will also find account books, diaries, deeds, auction and estate sale particulars, early photographs and albums, engravings and prints, drawings, watercolours and printed ephemera – covering most counties, with an emphasis on the West Country.
Old county histories, parish registers, directories, maps and estate papers are invaluable when tracing Cornish ancestors or the history of a house, farm or mine. Not all of the stock is online, so if you are looking for something in particular, contact Ambra Books with your specific wants – they are also keen to buy books, maps and documents you may wish to sell.
See our Cornwall genealogy pages for more family history resources.
Browse the main and clearance stock lists, samples of text, items wanted, and Lesley Aitchison’s maps and manuscripts on the Ambra Books website (it opens in a new tab).
