A place to keep books
Nov. 23rd, 2025 03:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustUshaw is a former Catholic seminary and subsequently part of Durham University which is currently remodelling itself as a historic house. The seminary's Great Library is still there, and although it is not as fully open to visitors as the rest of the building, every now and then you can book a ticket which gives you half an hour's access. That's what we did on Friday.
durham_rambler told me that although parts of the building are by Pugin, his design for the library were rejected as not big enough. I am charmed by this reversal of my usual assumptions (Thing big, Augustus! Really?) but can't find any evidence for it. durham_rambler thinks he may have read it on one of the information boards lining the approach to the library; the nearest I can find on the internet is a FaceBook post saying "The library building was constructed between 1849 and 1851 to plans by architects Joseph and Charles Hansom. It was designed to mirror A.W.N Pugin’s St Cuthbert’s Chapel on the other side of Main House."
There were information boards along here, but I was distracted by the sparkly decoration, and the only notice I read was the one thanking the students of the local primary schools for their contributions to the 'Starwalk'.
Photography was permitted, but we were asked only to take general views, not to photograph individual books: I tried to be good, but I do love detail, so I hope this is within the rules - and that the trailing ribbons (whatever they are) are visible:
At first I thought this workstation was a bindery, but one of the volunteers told me no, this is where they clean the books (a slow and continuing process):
A solitary reader:
And one last view of books, large and small:
Serendipitously,boybear sent me this link to the 'Idiom' book tower in the Prague Municipal Library: "You've probably already seen it," he said, but I hadn't, although now I come to look, it is all over the interenet, mostly on really irritating sites which are long on advertising but short on information. It sets out to be massively instagrammable, and it succeeds, but has a certain appeal despite that (not really a practical way of storing your books, though). Appropriately, the Library's own website has a good picture.
It reminded me of Simulacrum, a sculpture on Hadrian's Wall which we visited ten years ago...
durham_rambler told me that although parts of the building are by Pugin, his design for the library were rejected as not big enough. I am charmed by this reversal of my usual assumptions (Thing big, Augustus! Really?) but can't find any evidence for it. durham_rambler thinks he may have read it on one of the information boards lining the approach to the library; the nearest I can find on the internet is a FaceBook post saying "The library building was constructed between 1849 and 1851 to plans by architects Joseph and Charles Hansom. It was designed to mirror A.W.N Pugin’s St Cuthbert’s Chapel on the other side of Main House."There were information boards along here, but I was distracted by the sparkly decoration, and the only notice I read was the one thanking the students of the local primary schools for their contributions to the 'Starwalk'.
Photography was permitted, but we were asked only to take general views, not to photograph individual books: I tried to be good, but I do love detail, so I hope this is within the rules - and that the trailing ribbons (whatever they are) are visible:
At first I thought this workstation was a bindery, but one of the volunteers told me no, this is where they clean the books (a slow and continuing process):
A solitary reader:
And one last view of books, large and small:
Serendipitously,
boybear sent me this link to the 'Idiom' book tower in the Prague Municipal Library: "You've probably already seen it," he said, but I hadn't, although now I come to look, it is all over the interenet, mostly on really irritating sites which are long on advertising but short on information. It sets out to be massively instagrammable, and it succeeds, but has a certain appeal despite that (not really a practical way of storing your books, though). Appropriately, the Library's own website has a good picture.It reminded me of Simulacrum, a sculpture on Hadrian's Wall which we visited ten years ago...
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