Chetham's Library, Reference library in Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, England
Chetham's Library is a reference library in Cathedral Gardens, Manchester, England, housed in a medieval sandstone building with heavy oak doors. The traditional reading rooms have high ceilings and are lined with wooden bookcases that still hold tens of thousands of volumes.
This public library was founded in 1653, making it the oldest continuously operating public library in English-speaking countries. The rooms have been expanded several times but kept their medieval structure and feel.
The name comes from Humphrey Chetham, a 17th-century textile merchant who opened his collection to the public. Visitors today walk through the same rooms where scholars once sat at heavy oak tables, reading and taking notes.
Access is by guided tour only and requires advance booking, with research appointments available Monday to Friday mornings. The rooms are small and require quiet behavior, as several readers work at the same time.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used a reading alcove by the window to conduct research for The Communist Manifesto. The collection includes 41 medieval manuscripts and over 100,000 volumes, with 60,000 books published before 1851 still stored in the original oak cases.
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