Blog

1. Good bye and good luck, Jess

   We always hate to see our volunteers leave, even when it means they are moving on to bigger and better things. Jess Purdy, the longest-serving volunteer on our Belle Vue...

   3rd March 2015 • Read more

2. Belle Vue comes to Gorton Monastery!

   Sunday 8th and Monday 9th March from 12-4 pm Chetham’s Library is bringing its Belle Vue Collection to beautiful Gorton Monastery for a Belle Vue Festival! We’ll be joining other Belle Vue...

   27th February 2015 • Read more

3. Wallpaper, the Whitworth and William Henry Arnott…

     We recently noticed on a lower shelf in the library, an attractive, if slightly shabby, blue daisy patterned box. The pattern on both the box, and the jacket of...

   26th February 2015 • Read more

4. The origin of the Sun King?

   Charles Perrault, Courses de testes et de bague faittes par le roy, et par les princes et seigneurs de sa cour, en l’annee 1662 This collection of exuberant engravings of...

   19th February 2015 • Read more

5. Man of the moment: William Tyndale

     Fans of ‘Wolf Hall’ will have been watching with bated breath the spreading influence of Protestant reformer and translator William Tyndale, who also features in this excellent BBC documentary...

   9th February 2015 • Read more

6. ‘He hath unmysteried the mystery of heraldry…’

   Our copy of John Guillim’s Display of heraldry (5th edition 1679) is doubly delightful, as it is both a fascinating (and entertaining) early work on heraldry and also an excellent...

   6th February 2015 • Read more

7. Virtual Belle Vue is Live!

   We are very pleased indeed to announce that our new Virtual Belle Vue website is now live! Thanks to a generous grant by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund and the...

   4th February 2015 • Read more

8. NEW! Saturday tours of Chetham’s Library

   We’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be opening on certain Saturdays during the spring and summer for a brilliant new tour with Jonathan Schofield. Jonathan will guide you round the...

   2nd February 2015 • Read more

9. The guidebooks of Belle Vue

   We’re delighted to present another post on the history of Belle Vue from Courtney Stickland, a volunteer on the Belle Vue Project from the University of Manchester. This week, she...

   28th January 2015 • Read more

10. In search of a North West Passage

    (The chilly winds and icy January weather suggested the subject for this post.) “…imagine … these mountains of crystal hurled through a narrow strait by a rapid tide; meeting as...

    19th January 2015 • Read more