All blog posts:

• The Mysteries of the Manchester Alphabet
• No Cure for Love: Two Early Modern Apothecaries and Their Books
• A total gamechanger – looking back 30 years
• Of Eggs, Shee-Spies and Aphra Behn
• KEEP IT SECRET, KEEP IT SAFE: WAX SEALS AND LETTER-LOCKING
• A Royal Tudor Bed and a Northern Rogue
• Harmonia Ruralis or an essay towards a Natural History of British Song Birds
• Tinkler, Tailor, Librarian, Thief
• Chetham’s Library Hosts the Transnational Early Modern Book Conference
• Thomas Jones: Chetham’s Greatest Librarian
• Robert Thyer: Sophistication and Simplicity
• Richard Johnson, the First Librarian: No Surplus Surplice?
• Chetham’s Librarians: Lives and Legacies
• Humphrey Chetham’s Dinner
• New Librarian announced
• Making Their Mark: The Women of the Book Trade
• Morbid Curiosities: Gothic Stories In The Library
• An interview with Fergus Wilde, the Librarian
• ‘Strange Knowledge of a Crow’: A Yeoman Farmer Annotates Holinshed’s Chronicle
• A Bluestocking Influencer – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
• A Tale of Manchester Life: The City’s Most Famous Literary Woman and Her First Novel
• Oldham Coat of Arms
• Matilda Betham: An (un)Celebrated Woman
• The Accedence of Armorie: Sixteenth-Century Paint by Numbers
• An English Renaissance Feminist: Cancelled
• A Woman’s Write: Searching For Chetham’s Published Women
• Lucy Hutchinson and the Civil War
• Note, Gentle Reader
• William Hogarth talk
• A Weaving of Words
• The Bonnie Prince at Manchester’s ‘Palace’
• Poetry in the Margins
• The Blavatnik Honresfield Library
• The Medals Of The Sun King
• Who’s got the better Flea?
• The Kingdom and People of Siam
• Instruction With Delight
• Eleazar Albin
• Reading in the Library: Swati Joshi
• Robert Bolton
• Lasers and Tudor Woodwork
• Nicholas Culpeper
• The fyrst boke of the Introduction of knowledge
• The Dilapidated College, Manchester
• The Great Miss Lydia Becker: Suffragist, Scientist and Trailblazer
• Cambrics Scrapbook and Catalogue Update
• Charles Henry Heathcote: Designing Victorian and Edwardian Manchester
• Thomas Whitaker
• New History of Manchester Cathedral
• Passing time …
• General Wolfe’s Sword
• Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia
• Manor Court Rolls from the West Riding
• John Bradford
• Virtual Content From Festival of Libraries
• Festival of Libraries
• Book Clean
• Environmental Control
• A Bread and Cheese Bookseller
• Pesky Pests
• A Restoration Ash Wednesday
• Another One Bites The Dust
• Speedway Superstars
• Good As Mould !
• A Tale of Two Statues
• Chetham’s Library receives lifeline Culture Recovery Fund grant
• Blindingly good news
• Authors and Readers in Humphrey Chetham’s Parish Libraries
• Caring for our Books
• A Small World?
• Bodies In The Library: A display of anatomy books
• Lady Day indoors
• Not In front of The Children: Fairy Tales in Chetham’s Library
• Chetham’s Library, Book Historians and Book Lovers
• Sir Edward Watkin – King of Railways
• Flights of Fancy
• Pamphlet wars: Roger L’Estrange and printed polemic in Restoration England
• “The disturbed state of these towns”: relief for special constables after Peterloo
• Manchester’s First Printed Book, 1719
• A vision for the future
• The ‘Godly English Books’ of the Gorton Chest
• From Historical Fact to Contemporary Fiction
• What’s it like to volunteer here?
• ‘Opening Up Chetham’s Library’ awarded DCMS Wolfson grant
• Weird and wonderful: Edwardian Christmas cards
• Belle Vue Miniature Railway – a beloved attraction remembered
• Robert Rose, the Bard of Colour
• An unusual acquisition
• Accidental heroes – getting in on the act
• The Pringle Collection
• The Belle Vue Scenic Railway – our Special Correspondent writes
• Dr Dee at Chetham’s – a view from illustrator Catherine Booth
• Hulme Trust Archive: Manchester through the ages
• Sweated industries: “almost ceaseless toil, hard and unlovely to the last degree”
• Another Manchester Man
• Lustrings, Peeling and thread sattins, Sarsanets, Persians, Burdets, Camblets, Calimancoes and all other sorts of Stuffs
• Graven images
• A Rare Piece of Irish History
• Apples and ale with Christmas tale will make a household merry
• Anatomy as art
• Ways of Reading ‘Gestured’ by Rowan Bailey
• Inviting the world to our table: Cooking a programme of outreach activities with “The Ballad of Chetham’s Library”
• The Gestures of Hogarth
• You must locate a fantasy
• Reform and repression – the Hay Scrapbooks
• Manga among the manuscripts
• The Revolution will not be Televised
• Volunteers wanted for our summer exhibition!
• The Hungerford Club
• Bright hopes for suffrage: Lydia Becker and the struggle for democracy
• The Cross Dressing Chevalier d’Eon
• Slightly Foxed – whig politics and a fine gift
• Eu(have got to be)clid(ding me)
• Letter from Waterloo
• Brass Art & Chetham’s Library – Meeting Point 2
• John Browne’s Mycrographia Nova
• Amusement Microscopique
• Belle Vue News – John Bullock, first manager of the New Elizabethan Ballroom
• Digiti-Lingua
• The wondrous transformation of caterpillars and their remarkable diet of flowers
• information as material
• The Ancoats Brotherhood
• Early bindings at Chetham’s library – part 2 (Leather)
• Early bindings at Chetham’s library – part 1 (Vellum)
• Chetham’s Library Announced as Arts & Heritage Meeting Point2 Museum
• A History of Manchester Fiction
• Dame of Dialect
• Seventeenth Century Crowdfunding with Knyff and Kip
• The Bees
• Cats vs Dogs
• Calendar Girls… and Boys
• Fashionable Amusements
• The Ballad of Chetham’s Library
• Thursday Lates
• Waste Not Want Not
• Dr. Ferriar or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and See Ghosts
• Hulme-orous Photos
• Two Libraries and an Orrery…
• Second city of the Empire
• Novel Experiences of Horses’ Heads – the Origins of the Palatine Building
• Samuel Bamford (1788-1872)
• Poet’s Corner – Manchester After Hours at Chetham’s Library
• M is for Manchester
• New Speedway Collection Comes to Virtual Belle Vue
• Activities for all!
• The uncertain glory of an April day…
• Number Four in an Occasional Series of Stuff You Wouldn’t Expect us to Have – Underwear Catalogue, 1938
• Nibbles, Tat and Myths – An Evening with the Library Patrons
• Family Activity Day
• Number Three in an Occasional Series of Stuff You Wouldn’t Expect us to Have – Get Your Rocks Off
• Wedding Open Day this Sunday!
• Meet our Volunteers – Number One: Gill Williamson
• Number Two in an Occasional Series of Stuff You Wouldn’t Expect us to Have – A (Possibly non-Celtic) Celtic Stone Head
• Number One in an Occasional Series of Stuff You Wouldn’t Expect us to Have – Oz: Schoolkids Issue
• How to Keep the Magick Alive…
• Happy Birthday Byrom, From All Your Friends at Chetham’s Library
• Unreal Tour / Real Spaces
• Tickets almost gone for “The Unreal Tour”
• Chetham’s Library now on Instagram
• The Unreal Tour: Crowdsourced Half-truths from iOrganic
• A Wartime (B)Log
• Curiouser and Curiouser: Chetham’s Cabinet of Curiosities
• Unreal Chetham’s – An Unofficial Official Tour From iOrganic
• Happy New Year! With – er – mouldy cheese?
• Christmas with a splash – and what the Dickens?
• Christmas magic – Rylands new exhibition casts a few of our spells!
• Pop-up Afternoon Tea at Chetham’s!
• P-p-picking up Penguins
• The Medicine Cabinet: Unlocking Manchester’s Medical History
• Shelf Life
• An early selfie of Chetham’s
• Baroque and Roll – Can you Handel it?
• Winter Journeys – St Cecilia Day concerts by the Hepton Singers
• How are things in London, Old Man?
• Eliza Carthy at Chetham’s
• Medieval Manchester
• Madame Malibran
• ‘Owls, apes… monsters and sprigg’d letters’
• Dosvidaniya, Bolton…
• Heritage Open Day this Saturday!
• Tea with Chimpanzees: Hannah Weaver’s perspective on Belle Vue
• Thanks and Farewell. Jack Harris
• “What’s your favourite book?”
• Theophila and a curious letter M
• Conjuring spirits in the ‘Tractatus de Nigromatia’
• A very private war
• Gardening up north
• Is there a doctor in the house?
• Belle Vue Bingo!
• Chetham’s in the naughty nineties
• ‘It had not been my intention to write a journal…’
• Stone circles
• The most cruel of all goddesses
• Lecture on George Shaw
• The Duke of Bridgewater’s Canal
• Gerald Iles at Belle Vue
• 11 May – Politics can be Murder, Prime Minister!
• A fifteen-year-old boy’s VE Day
• The conchologist’s daughters
• W/Op Hickling, R.I.P.
• St George’s Day – but who he?
• Cup of coffee anyone?
• New Exhibition – Life’s Labours Lost?
• Law and order
• Animal in the Archive
• A Dicey moment for Tricky Dicky?
• Eclipse fever, 18th century style
• Sail away
• Happy Days
• Music and Manuscript
• A journal, commenced Dec 1st 1820
• Marx in red pencil
• Good bye and good luck, Jess
• Belle Vue comes to Gorton Monastery!
• Wallpaper, the Whitworth and William Henry Arnott…
• The origin of the Sun King?
• Man of the moment: William Tyndale
• ‘He hath unmysteried the mystery of heraldry…’
• Virtual Belle Vue is Live!
• NEW! Saturday tours of Chetham’s Library
• The guidebooks of Belle Vue
• In search of a North West Passage
• Going down on the wrong end
• Chetham’s Library in the Manchester Evening News
• England in 1835
• A plain and familiar method, suitable for the meanest capacity…
• Laureate’s Choice
• At the sign of the spectacles
• Deck the Halls
• A fresh look at the Belle Vue project
• The Ariel Poems
• Manchester: Alchemical City
• An early work of botany, and a political cow
• Lunchtime closure
• From Flanders Fields to Worsley Hall
• On the radio
• Happy Birthday William Hogarth!
• A ghost-cat for Halloween
• Travels and discoveries far and near
• Men and the Fields by Adrian Bell, with drawings and lithographs by John Nash
• Belle Vue Event
• Manchester Literature Festival 6-26 October
• The Theatre of Insects, or the tangled web of Elizabethan entomology
• A closer look at the Palatine Building
• A warm welcome to George Jennison
• Farewell to Hannah
• Heritage Open Day: David’s Story
• We are open tomorrow for Heritage Open Days!
• Book now for Jonathan Foyle!
• Farewell to Laura
• Sampling Belle Vue: a 21st-century remix
• Musical Monday
• William Ogden’s petition to the Prince Regent
• The Ladies’ Flower-Garden
• Heritage Open Days and New Lunchtime Opening
• Chetham’s Library awarded Full Museum Accreditation
• Peter Manchester
• Come and join us on Facebook!
• Going underground
• One of our earliest treasures
• Annual Peterloo Walk
• Jess’s Pigeon Post
• Jonathan Foyle at Chethams
• Japanese Celebration
• The Only Way is Essex
• A visit from ARLIS
• The common press
• Crimelines
• The Diary of Mary Travers
• Japanese Gardens: A Celebration
• Succession
• New course starting in October
• News on the Palm Leaf Manuscript
• Library Closure
• Book of spells
• A model for ‘Game of Thrones’?
• John Dalton: A Cumbrian Philosopher
• Looking back at Japan
• Belle Vue: Entertainment Showground of the World
• Gin Lane
• A backhanded compliment…
• Sad songs say so much
• A Thril a minute
• Beautiful book covers
• Museums Showoff
• Dear Prudence
• Fattò comes to the Library
• Plugging the gaps
• Private Lives?
• The Gullinge Sonnets
• Political cartoons of 1876
• Courtney’s blog post
• Artists inspired by Belle Vue
• C16th plastic surgery
• Happy St George’s Day!
• Paul’s blog post
• MCR13
• The bear necessities
• Gertrude Neisen
• Space monkey
• Worse ways to die…
• Up the chimney
• A literary photoshoot
• Laura’s blog post
• Creative Tourist
• Belle Vue book published 90 years too late!
• The mysterious monkey lady
• Creative Threads
• Gimme shelter
• A bird in a tree and the matchless Orinda
• A very tall story
• Oh! How I would squeez my Juice in thee…
• Monkey business
• Worth getting out of bed for!
• Howzat?!
• ‘Dreadful havock’
• A very big adventure
• Imperfect animals…*
• Full of fascinating facts…
• Who let the dogs out?
• ‘At the hour of 8 and 22 minutes at night…’
• Chetham’s Library awarded Esmeé Fairbairn grant!
• A Merry Christmas to all our Readers!
• Fashion forward
• Several curious performances…
• ‘A truly original machine’
• Grains of gold
• Culture in Manchester
• Dear Diary…
• Mr Chambers and Persephone
• The Diaries of Dora Turnor
• Manchester Poets
• Beware the Basilisk
• The Political Apple Pie
• Captain Peacock
• November
• A head in the dandelions
• The Edward Watkin Collection
• Welcome to Michael Wood!
• A bias for binding
• Public history at a public library…
• Over to Olivia…
• Bishop Fraser
• Lucky wedding rings!
• John Byrom
• Jeremy Deller becomes our new Honorary Patron
• Location, location, location…
• RIP Humphrey Chetham
• Please raise your glasses!
• Edward and Absolom Watkin: Hidden Heroes of Radical Manchester
• Animal Magic
• New digitised material on the website!
• Catriona meets Edward Watkin
• Turning on the waterworks
• Swinging on a star
• Come and see the Reading Room!
• The Reading Room re-opens next week!
• Views in Egypt
• Happy Birthday Thomas De Quincey
• It was all yellow
• Welcome to Catriona!
• Who’s been eating my book?
• All that’s best in the world of jazz…nice!
• The ticking of the death watch
• The German Tango
• ‘To the ends of the earth…’
• Book now for our Hidden Treasures special event!
• Get into the groove
• A visit to Turton Tower
• Never mind the Bollands
• More pictures of the Reading Room work
• A chainsaw in the Reading Room!
• A visit from Jeremy Deller
• An orchard on Shudehill
• The Chetham coat of arms
• A new world of words
• Shanty-O!
• Preachee and Floggy too!
• James Taylor Staton
• To cut or not to cut…
• Don’t give up the day job…
• Incline Press
• The old scriptorium
• Heart of oak
• The strange case of the Galway salmon fishery
• Thank you James!
• A new view of the Reading Room
• Fish and ships
• The drama of Belle Vue
• John Bradford’s Bible
• What’s hidden in your tea leaves?
• The Legend of Driff
• A two-part history
• Big in Washington
• Eccles Cakes
• How do you pronounce Chetham’s?
• Angel Meadow Fest
• Looking after the Library
• Our longest manuscript?
• John Dalton
• A C15th interactive text with a difference
• Happy International Workers’ Day!
• Sarum Missal
• Delights for the eyes and the mind
• …said the gynaecologist to the Bishop
• Eighteenth-century birds
• Walker’s Croft Burial Ground
• The Strange Case of the Belgian Tarts
• Isaac Newton: The Last Magician
• Living without working
• M-m-m-m-m-m-m-my Pomona…
• The magic of Belle Vue
• John Reed at Oxford
• How manifold are thy works!
• Reminiscences of MOSI
• The Great Herbal
• A Rochdale Pioneer from Chetham’s
• How the Library got its books
• Ishe Komborera Africa
• Diaries of John Reed
• It was a dark and stormy night…
• James Crossley
• Let us together be bound!
• In defence of Richard III
• A Cure for the Winter Blues
• A Bacchanalian Garland
• Our latest newsletter is now live!
• Prince Albert and his memorial
• A funny thing happened on the way to the forum
• Who can stand before His cold?
• The Library of Cool
• Happy Birthday, Archbishop!
• “When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled”…
• Happy New Year!
• See you next year!
• Merry Christmas from the Elven Librarians
• Ambassador, you are spoiling us!
• Christmas and New Year Closing
• The man who knew everything
• Our Paintings
• Dame Joan Bakewell is our new Honorary Patron!
• Hallelujah!
• Politics and the Power of Print
• Brave women
• A Famous Conspiracy
• A Manchester Adonis
• Prophetic utterings
• Christmas is coming…
• Oh what a night!
• Tick tock
• We’re on the telly!
• Private View
• In den beghinne was dat woert
• A first look at the Clay Scrapbook
• A special visitor
• The only book you’ll ever need
• A full and plain evidence concerning witches
• Brains not beauty
• The Bondage of Pleasure
• Tudor marginalia
• The drum solo from Hell…
• Fashion forward
• Paradise Lost
• The ways of mad folk
• An Account of the Foxglove
• Donne over
• That sinking feeling…
• The Black Sheep of Hulme
• Our new exhibition is now open!
• Radical thinking at Chetham’s
• Putting on my white hat…
• Not long to go now
• Another treasure from the collection
• ‘Anne Walne is a witch and hath killd my chilld’
• Later and de Laeter
• Another Friday, another discovery
• Our e-newsletter goes live!
• Grant of Edward VI
• Chetham’s to host Poetry Prize Gala
• Homer-philia
• More views of London
• Celebrating London 2012
• Closed on Bank Holiday Monday!
• A sixteenth-century Venetian treasure
• Our father who art in hvn
• For general good conduct
• Edward Hobson: obviously no rolling stone…
• The Three Bears
• Not just an impressive projection…
• Urning their keep
• Happy Birthday to St Ann’s
• A surprising discovery
• Lysons’ Woodchester
• Law and order
• Theatre Royal Playbills
• Forget me not…
• Is cheese rational?
• A mighty sword
• Perhaps she’s on the Railway
• Shouldn’t you be wearing white gloves?
• “For hym that holdeth not his pyssing…”
• The mask of death
• Ipomadon
• Military Hospitals in Rusholme
• A reprise of Dr Dee
• Cherry Blossoms under the Full Moon
• It’s Palm Friday
• Swan upmanship
• Papal Prayers
• The Yattendon Hymnal
• Another famous communist visits Chetham’s Library
• The Pigmy Revels
• Victoria Bridge on a Saturday Night…
• Manchester, so much to answer for…
• Canons to the left of him!
• Getting stoned
• Flowers on Friday
• Are you celebrating the Feast of St Matthias?
• A secret ticket…
• Did you forget Valentine’s Day?
• Birthday look-alikes
• Here’s to you, Mrs Robinson
• Congratulations Dr Joel
• Who was Apothecary Thyer?
• Animal, vegetable or mineral?
• Criminal Manchester: Experiences of a Special Correspondent
• Manchester of Today
• Conservation Grants
• A window into the past
• Chetham’s in the news
• Calling all industrial archaeologists!
• Happy New Year!
• Christmas closing times
• Christians Awake!
• Gorton Parish Library
• Rocque of ages ago
• Woe to the fattest
• Rotten to the core
• Roll up, roll up
• Hello Boys!
• Philip’s bird
• Introducing Philip the Monster
• A sudden and terrible raine
• Glass slide collection
• A bewitching sight
• Alain Chartier
• The Glamour of Manchester
• Online exhibition now live!
• Now you see it…
• What on earth was he on about?
• Karl Marx at Chetham’s
• Little Lamb who ate thee?
• “I am treasuring these last few days of peace…”
• The mystery of Humphrey Chetham
• The Grey Lady of Chetham’s
• Manchester Weekender 2011
• Elegance and Decadence
• Curios and Curiosities: A Very Peculiar Assortment of Treasures
• Saxton’s Atlas of England and Wales
• A right royal read
• You’re under arrest!
• Birds and their nests
• Minutes of the Albert Memorial
• Sex, sermons and wig-making
• Treading the boards
• Unlocking the code
• John Dee Special!
• Attic Nights
• Chetham’s Library on The Culture Show
• Designation’s what you need…
• Busy busy busy
• A happy coincidence
• Thomas Barritt’s sketchbook
• Sights of Britain
• Patrizia Wiesner
• Doctor Dee
• Yeo Ho Ho!
• Oh brave new world!
• A very Victorian mutilation
• Boo!
• Joshua’s hens
• Observations on volcanoes
• The Manchester Man
• It’s all in the stars
• Sir Henry Knyvett’s ‘Defence of this Realm’
• 101 Treasures of Chetham’s
• Visit of the Archbishop of Canterbury
• Star of the small screen
• Monochrome daze
• New images of Chetham’s Library
• Baroness Bakewell on whether libraries matter
• Parent’s Hope
• Four legs are better than one
• ‘The drollest concern I think I ever met with’
• Voices
• Merry Christmas!
• A terrible night for Manchester
• Who do you think they were?
• Anyone for chess?
• Two gentlemen of Manchester
• Desert Island Poems
• Manchester Fourteen Miles
• An evening’s entertainment
• “I have thought of the days of old and the years that are past”
• Laetitia Sadier
• A book of emblems
• We shall be pleased to accept the polecat
• Wife in a bag
• On the radio
• Twittered!
• A pressing situation
• Fountains galore!
• Norman wisdom
• Some unusual bindings
• Make do and mend
• De monstrorum caussis, natura, et differentiis
• The return of Matthew
• A flying visit
• Health beckons from every pie
• Rude Britannia
• Strawberry Hill forever…
• Ex Libris: Bookplates at Chetham’s
• Up in the air
• An eighteenth-century scandal