Libraries -- History; Library architecture -- History; Library fittings and supplies -- History
Alsoe in the Library two globes; three Mapps; two queres
of larg paper to make tables; a paper fol-booke; A
Ruleing penn; 24 dossen Chains; A geniological roul; and
a larg serpent or snaks skin.
[Illustration: Fig. 115. Ring and link of chain: Wimborne Minster.]
At Wimborne Minster the books are placed in a small room, about fifteen
feet square, over the vestry, a building in the Decorated style, situated
between the south transept and the south aisle of the choir. Access to
this room is obtained by a turret-stair at the south-west corner. It was
fitted up as a library in 1686, when the greater part of the books were
given by the Rev. William Stone. There are two plain wooden shelves,
carried round three sides of the room. The chains are attached to the
right-hand board of each book, instead of to the left-hand board, and they
are made of iron wire, twisted as shewn in the sketch (fig. 115). The
swivel, instead of being central, plays in a twist of the wire which
forms the ring attached to the book. The iron bars are supported on eyes,
and are secured by a tongue of iron passed over a staple fixed into the
bracket which supports the shelf. The tongue was originally kept in its
place by a padlock, now replaced by a wooden peg. No desk was attached to
the shelves, but in lieu of it a portable desk and stool were
provided[470].
A library was built over the porch of the parish church at
Denchworth[471], Berks, in 1693, and "stocked with 100 books well secured
with chains," presumably for the use of the vicar and his successors; and
in 1715, William Brewster, M.D., bequeathed 285 volumes to the
churchwardens of All Saints' Church, Hereford, for the same purpose[472].
The books were placed in the vestry, where they still are. They are all
chained on a system copied from that in use at the Chapter Library.
In addition to collections of books, which varied in extent according to
the taste, or the means, of the donor, single volumes are often found
chained in churches. These do not come within the scope of this Essay, and
I will therefore pass on to notice some libraries connected with Grammar
Schools.
At Abingdon in Berkshire, the school, founded 1563, had a library, some
volumes of which, bearing their chains, are still preserved. There was a
similar collection at Bicester in Oxfordshire, where a school is said to
have been in existence before 1570. In 1571 James Pilkington, Bishop of
Durham (1561-1577), by will dated 4 February in that year, bequeathed his
books to the school at Rivington in Lancashire. The following extracts
from the statutes, said to have been made shortly after the arrival of the
books, remind us of monastic provisions[473].
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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