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The old scriptorium
This little room off the Reading Room has always been known as the Scriptorium, although we have no idea why – it’s unlikely to have ever been a place where manuscripts were copied due to its very poor light. The photo above is taken with flash but this one gives a more accurate feel of the place:
The room is traditionally used as a store room, but has recently been emptied apart from an old binding press, half a gate and the top of the C17th Marx desk. Work on the Reading Room will allow us to heat and upgrade this room, turning it into a small digitising workshop.
An interesting feature of the room is the addition of two quatrefoil spyholes in the stone wall, which allow a view of the Baronial Hall below (just visible above the tabletop in the first photograph). When these photographs were taken, the ethereal sounds of a harp recital were wafting into the room, one of the perks of working in a medieval building shared wtih a music school!
The photo below shows the opposite side of the room with its tiny windows looking out onto Fox Court.
