Friday 20 July 2007

St. Paul's Cathedral Library



A Special Privilege




The St. Paul's Cathedral library was another special treat. To get to the library we had to ascend a winding back narrow staircase which added to thee special secretiveness of the whole visit. The staircase led us to a room containing a large wooden model of the Cathedral designed by Christopher Wren. This model however was initially denied because King Charles thought it looked too much like the Vatican in Rome and being a protestant church that was not acceptable. Mr. Wren was pretty sneaky though, he agreed to change the design but during the construction he provided the original design and got his way anyway.


No pictures allowed



Our librarian guide, whose name is befittingly Joe Wisdom was charming in his own way. He certainly fit the stereotype of the stuffy librarian. No pictures were allowed in the library, that's how secret it is! The doors to the library are large wooden castle looking doors a little deceiving since the library itself is rather small. Once inside the familiar smell of musty old books was the first thing I noticed. Though small the library is still quite grand with high ceilings, pillars and two floors.
This is Winchester Cathedral, not St. Paul's.


There was a large book displayed on one of the tables. Mr. Wisdom asked us to take a look and guess what it was. I was able to determine that it was from the Bodelian Library from the heading on the page but that was it. It turned out to be a catalog record from the Bodelian library at Oxford University. He pointed out the similiarities of cataloging today, the tediousness of it. Thank heavens for computers though.



We descended a different winding staircase when leaving the library. All in all an interesting visit, made even more fun by the winding staircases. This is the front of Winchester Cathedral. We weren't abel to take pictures as St. Paul's Library.

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