The John Rylands Library
Neo-Gothic Victorian library with a church-like reading room, rare books and marble statues.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the John Rylands Library on Deansgate in Manchester follows the money behind it: a textile merchant's vast estate, and the Havana-born widow who inherited most of it in eighteen eighty-eight. It touches a secret negotiation with an earl over a family library, an architect named Basil Champneys, and the hidden engineering that kept a smoky city's soot off the shelves. Best heard standing in the reading room, near the two white marble figures.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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