Blog

1. Monkey business

   By popular request, may we present one of the heroes of Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, the much-loved Consul the Chimp. Consul, who was often dressed in a cap and jacket...

   12th February 2014 • Read more

2. Worth getting out of bed for!

   There was great excitement this morning when we welcomed architectural historian Jonathan Foyle, furniture historian Ian Coulson and furniture restoration expert Tim Garland to the Library to examine the carved...

   6th February 2014 • Read more

3. Howzat?!

   Today is the birthday of famed Lancashire and England cricketer Ernest Tyldesley, who was born in Worsley in 1889. His elder brother, John Thomas Tyldesley, also batted for Lancashire and...

   5th February 2014 • Read more

4. ‘Dreadful havock’

   The North West may have so far got off relatively lightly in the recent floods, but this late nineteenth-century ballad shows that it wasn’t always so. The catastrophic flood of...

   30th January 2014 • Read more

5. A very big adventure

      The end of January sees the arrival of the Chinese New Year of the Wood Horse. This year is believed to be excellent for adventure and foreign travel, so...

   23rd January 2014 • Read more

6. Imperfect animals…*

   These fabulous engravings are taken from a wonderful volume of work about molluscs and worms which we came across last week when looking for something else.The genera vermium exemplified by...

   23rd January 2014 • Read more

7. Full of fascinating facts…

     We are very pleased to announce the addition of two new volumes to add to our collection of publications by the Daisy Bank Printing and Publishing Company of Manchester....

   22nd January 2014 • Read more

8. Who let the dogs out?

   We couldn’t resist sharing this early C20th photograph of a Cheshire gentleman and his furry friends… quite what they were up to is anyone’s guess, but they certainly seem raring...

   17th January 2014 • Read more

9. ‘At the hour of 8 and 22 minutes at night…’

   The use of a large family Bible to record the dates of births and deaths may not be especially unusual, but this Great Bible of 1553 goes one step further....

   16th January 2014 • Read more

10. Chetham’s Library awarded Esmeé Fairbairn grant!

    We are delighted to announce that the Library has been awarded a grant of £45,000 from the Esmeé Fairbairn Collections Fund, one of only six organisations to be successful in...

    15th January 2014 • Read more