Over 150,000 second-hand books fill a former Yorkshire Dales youth hostel as owner seeks a buyer

One of Britain's largest stocks of second-hand books ever amassed can be found in the unlikeliest of locations: a vast former youth hostel in a pretty corner of the Yorkshire Dales.

Meticulously sorted into subject areas, from naval history to 19th-century literature, architecture to zoology, over 150,000 volumes fill some 25 high-ceilinged rooms spread over four floors.

To withstand the sheer weight of all those hardbacks, the building, which began life as a prep school in c1878, must surely be as strong as a Roman