The British Library

Address: | 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB |
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Phone: | 033-0333 1144 |
Website: | |
Opening times: | Mon-Thu 9:30–20:00, Fri: 9:30-18:00, Sat 9:30–1700, Sun and holidays: 11:00-17:00 |
How to get there: | Tube: King’s Cross |
Entry fee: | Free |
Additional information: | Café and shop |
The British Library has only existed as a separate institution since 1973 but its origins are far more historic. As part of the British Museum, founded in 1753, it was housed until 1997 in the main museum building, with magnificent purpose-built reading rooms. In the 1960s, however, it was recognised that the Library had far outgrown its premises and in 1974 the present site in St Pancras was purchased. In 1998, after a catalogue of financial crises, Colin St. John Wilson’s new building, originally designed in 1977, was finally opened. The British Library’s books (humanities and science); the India Office Library; and the British Institute of Recorded Sound are now united under one roof. At the core of the Library’s collections are the three foundation collections of the British Museum, which all contained manuscripts and books: that of Sir Hans Sloane (d. 1753); Sir Robert Cotton (d. 1631); and the Harleian collection of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford (d. 1724). The Library today is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world and contains several treasures: two contemporary copies of Magna Carta, 1215; the manuscript of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf; the wonderfully illuminated early Northumbrian ‘Lindisfarne Gospels’, written c. 715–20 in honour of St Cuthbert; William Caxton’s two editions of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1476 and 1483; the exceptional ‘Sforza Hours’ from Milan (c. 1490–1520); and the ‘Codex Arundel’ containing manuscript sheets of Leonardo da Vinci’s mathematical notes and diagrams. The Codex was once owned by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, who travelled to Italy with Inigo Jones, introducing the architect to the architecture of the Renaissance and of Classical Antiquity. |
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MUSEUMS & GALLERIES OF LONDON
Details below are taken from our Blue Guide Museums and Galleries of London. This is a 2005 title, here generally updated for website address and opening times, with useful comments from some of the museums themselves. More recent information is given in Emily Barber's magisterial new Blue Guide London, "Exceptional update to a classic and useful guide to this amazing city" (Amazon reader review).
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