Essex man raises £100,000 selling books to restore Georgian mansion
Last updated 29th May 2025
An Essex man has continued his father's legacy selling old books, raising £100,000 to restore a Georgian mansion.
The sales have funded key restorations at Copped Hall in Epping, including a service lift, stone staircase, and winter garden.
Taking over from his late father in 2019, Gordon Brown and his wife, Sharon, have grown their book-selling operation "exponentially", collecting "thousands" of books a week.
The project now raises up to £3,000 a month for Copped Hall Trust by rehoming second-hand books, CDs, and DVDs, often sourced from local house clearances.
Mr Brown has called it a "vital local service" giving new life to unwanted collections and drawing in visitors to this historic site once destroyed by fire and now slowly being brought back to life.
Rare finds like a £3,000 Victorian history and €800 hidden in a donated encyclopaedia have significantly contributed to restoration funds.
Mr Brown tells Greatest Hits Radio they use the "Sell Your Books" app for ease and selling at volume.
Mr Brown tells Greatest Hits Radio: "we provide books for film props, often they all have to be a certain colour, and we save maps and little books, including mini Collins dictionaries, for a couple who use them to make origami lampshades.
In the last five years, their efforts have raised a total of £100,000 for the trust.
Mr Brown credits their success to the fact that they’re willing to collect locally: "it's something charity shops are not able to offer, and in fact, some charities even take up our service themselves."
"Often the donors are bereaved and relieved to pass on cumbersome and often outdated book collections belonging to loved ones, knowing the money raised will go to a local cause."
"It feels like we've got something big going on, especially in those Eureka moments. We might be sifting through a couple of hundred DVDs and none of them are worth anything and then suddenly one goes WOW and we know it will sell for a lot, same goes for books.
"It's a complete circular economy, no book goes to landfill."
"It feels very rewarding doing it in my father's legacy and going towards such a good cause."
Established in 1993, the Copped Hall Trust has charitable status, and hopes to implement restoration and conservation, and acquire freehold of Copped Hall and its gardens to "permanently protect them under benign ownership.