A YORK bookshop that featured in a star-studded film is to be turned into a house, following the death of the owner.

Stone Trough Books on Walmgate was run by bookseller and publisher George Ramsden, who died in April 2019 at the age of 65.

The shop was used to shoot scenes of Mad to be Normal - a film starring former Doctor Who David Tennant, Mad Men and The Handmaid’s Tale actor Elisabeth Moss, Sir Michael Gambon and Gabriel Byrne in 2016.

A planning application has now been submitted for the shop - which has recently been closed.

Stone Trough Books was established in 1991 on Fossgate and moved to 51 Walmgate.

The shop also published books.

The building was originally residential - but given permission to be turned into a shop in 2008.

An application has now been made to convert it back into a two-bedroom home.

Under the plans, the bathroom would be in the basement, the ground floor converted from retail to a living room and kitchen, and two bedrooms on the first floor.

Mad to be Normal was filmed at several locations around York - including the bookshop - in 2016.

Scenes were shot above Stone Trough Books and more than 200 students signed up to appear as extras in scenes shot on campus at the University of York.

The film tells the story of Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing, who created a residential retreat for people suffering with schizophrenia and advocated the use of LSD for medical treatment.

About 20 extras wearing 1960s clothing were also seen in the street during filming, forming a queue to enter Stone Trough Books, before being ushered inside to film a scene where Laing is signing copies of his book.

The specialist bookshop also hit national headlines in 2006 when Mr Ramsden sold a book collection worth millions of pounds.

The 2,600-volume personal library of the US author Edith Wharton had been stored away for more than 20 years in the tiny Ryedale village where Mr Ramsden lived.

But was returned to the novelist's estate in Lenox, Massachusetts - after Mr Ramsden agreed to sell it.

Since he acquired the incomplete library for about £45,000 in 1984, Mr Ramsden had scoured the country to piece together the missing volumes.

Wharton left the library in her will to the historian Sir Kenneth Clark, in trust for his son, Colin Clark, brother of the late Tory MP Alan Clark. Colin Clark later sold the library to Maggs Brothers, a London book dealer, which in turn sold it to Mr Ramsden in 1984.

He stored the library at his home in Settrington, near Malton, and traced volumes that had gone missing over the years to complete the collection.

Mr Ramsden said at the time: "I had the library for 21 years, which was long enough.

"I came to realise that it should be something that is shared with people, not just privately owned."