Blog

1. Looking after the Library

   It costs a lot to look after our collection and keep the books in usable condition for our readers and visitors. We are grateful for our NADFAS volunteers who come...

   17th May 2013 • Read more

2. Our longest manuscript?

   This amazing fifteenth-century manuscript roll measures a full six metres when fully extended, surely a contender for the longest of the Library’s treasures. Not just a beautiful object, this closely...

   16th May 2013 • Read more

3. John Dalton

     We have a small but interesting collection of material relating to the great scientist and mathematician John Dalton (1766-1844), who spent much of his adult life in Manchester and...

   10th May 2013 • Read more

4. A C15th interactive text with a difference

   The Library’s unique 1493 copy of Hartman Schedel’s Liber Chronicarum, otherwise known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, is under the spotlight in today’s 101 Treasures. The extensive annotations made by one...

   3rd May 2013 • Read more

5. Happy International Workers’ Day!

     As many of you will already know, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels studied together at Chetham’s Library in the summer of 1845, working together in the now-famous window alcove...

   1st May 2013 • Read more

6. Sarum Missal

   The Library’s extremely fine fourteenth-century Sarum Missal was bought from William Clayton in 1712 for £1-01-0. It is believed to date from the reign of Richard II, and there is...

   26th April 2013 • Read more

7. Delights for the eyes and the mind

   These beautifully hand-coloured engravings are taken from Les delices des yeux et de l’esprit, ou collection generale des differentes especes de coquillages que la mer renferme by Georg Wolfgang Knorr...

   25th April 2013 • Read more

8. …said the gynaecologist to the Bishop

   Visitors to the Library’s Reading Room may not be aware that there are more books contained there than initially meet the eye, for in the corner by the donations box...

   24th April 2013 • Read more

9. Eighteenth-century birds

     These two beautifully illustrated eighteenth-century ornithological works came off the shelves recently and we took the opportunity to photograph some of their exquisite hand-coloured plates. The images above and...

   18th April 2013 • Read more

10. Walker’s Croft Burial Ground

    The redevelopment of Manchester Victoria has meant that bodies from the former Walker’s Croft burial ground are being exhumed and re-buried in Southern Cemetery. Walker’s Croft was in use from...

    12th April 2013 • Read more