A further reduction in the price of the former Cottage Bookshop in Penn has set the phones ringing all day at the offices of estate agent Keegan White.

Owner Allan Campbell had already lowered the figure once. Two weeks ago he reduced the price again.

When the building came on the market in March last year the asking price was £650,000 not including the stock.

News of the imminent demise of a shop book lovers regarded as an institution caused an emotional outpouring on social media. Many protested they were about to lose the best secondhand bookshop in the country, second only to Foyles in Charing Cross Road.

In a message to loyal customers posted on the website Mr Campbell explained the reason behind his decision to sell. He wrote: “After 60 years of trading it is no longer a viable business. It is with regret I have had to make the sad decision to close. We will continue to trade as long as possible.”

The bookshop closed in June last year.

After the first flurry of interest subsided and a buyer failed to materialize, Mr Campbell dropped the price to £600,000. Last week’s announcement has taken the figure down to £585,000.

In its heyday before technology and e-books changed reading habits to a large extent, keen readers came from far and wide, not just Bucks.

Some made a special journey in search of a specific title. More often than not it was regulars who made time to spend an enjoyable half hour or even the best part of a Saturday afternoon looking through the shelves crammed with 65,000 secondhand hardbacks and paperbacks, often two deep. The stock wasn’t limited to what was on display. There was a further store room filled with duplicates.

Staff had an encyclopedic knowledge of authors and whether a copy of a particular book was available and if so where it was likely to be, upstairs or down, in which subject section and in which aisle.

Customers were usually greeted like old friends and steered towards their quarry like gold prospectors hunting for hidden treasure which was often what it felt like.

Not surprisingly the quirky character of the bookshop attracted people from production teams looking for a backdrop for a TV programme or an episode in a popular series. Twice it was used as a set for Midsomer Murders.

It appeared in a couple of Blue Peter programmes and as a set for The Chuckle Brothers. It’s believed to have been the inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s library in the late author and one-time Bucks Free Press reporter’s Discworld novels.

The shop is slightly off the beaten track. Many who live in the area never knew it was there. It’s in a traffic-free narrow service road off Elm Road, the main road through the village.

It still looks like the cottage it once was. The windows are larger than when it was the home of the district nurse at the beginning of the last century but otherwise the outward character of the building hasn’t changed even though there has been a changing cast of occupiers since the nurse pedalled off to a new abode.

After she left the cottage became first a fish and chip shop, then a branch of Barclays Bank. During rationing in the Second World War it was used as a sugar store.

In the post war years it became Gravestock’s electrical shop, following that the village cobbler Fred Baker repaired shoes there. Eventually, in 1951, the present owner Allan Campbell’s father-in-law Fred Baddeley had the chance to buy it.

Fred was born in the house next door which at that time was the family’s general store. As a young adult he worked for the Chesham Building Society. By the time his daughter Wendy married Allan in 1972 he was on the board. “Fred always loved books ,” Mr Campbell told the Free Press after he announced his decision to sell the shop last year. “After buying the cottage he put a dozen books in the window for a shilling each.

“When they sold quickly it sowed the seed which led to it becoming a business. Eventually he retired from the building society and ran the bookshop.”

Lenny White, director of the agency with the bookshop on the books says the building can continue to be used as a shop but there’s the potential to turn it back into a cottage or a pair of cottages subject to planning consent.

He says the latest price reduction has led to a stream of viewings. “The ground floor and first floor are currently divided into sections by a multitude of bookshelves.

The counter is still there as are the exposed beams and the fireplace typical of the era when it was built. The two storey extension at the back spans the width of the building. There’s also a conservatory and a loft room.”