Event Details

A full day Study Event held at Carlisle Cathedral's Fratry Hall looking at the Cathedral Library's collection of rare books and manuscripts. This event is for an in-person audience only and will not be recorded.

The Library at Carlisle Cathedral is a collection of rare books and manuscripts over 300 years in the making. On Saturday 1 June, the Regional Heritage Centre will travel to the Cathedral’s beautiful Fratry Hall for a full day of presentations exploring this magnificent collection. We will be placing the Cathedral Library into context, examining how its history and collection relate to those of other cathedral libraries as well as private libraries. We will also reflect on the insights the Cathedral Library’s records afford into social and intellectual life in Carlisle since the later seventeenth century. We will conclude the day by considering the Cathedral Library’s future, taking orientation from its past and present histories. Our speakers include Matilda Houston-Brown (Wadham College, Oxford), Lois Wignall (University of Liverpool), Professor Matthew Sangster (University of Glasgow), Dr Matthew Shaw (Queens College, Oxford) and Professor Mark Towsey (University of Liverpool). There's even an optional, pre-bookable lunch in the Cathedral's atmospheric Undercroft. With so much on offer, it's sure to be a fascinating day, so don't miss out - secure your place now. Please note this event will be for in-person attendance only. The optional lunch is available with pre-booking ONLY, and places are limited.

9.30 a.m. Assemble Fratry, Carlisle Cathedral (tea/coffee is not served at the beginning of the day –

but is available to purchase at the café on site)

10.00 – 10.45 ‘Our very Charter sold to make a Taylor’s measures’: perspectives of loss and dynamics of restoration

in the rebuilding of Carlisle Cathedral Library - Matilda Houston-Brown (Wadham College, Oxford)

10.45 – 11.15 Coffee/tea & biscuits

11.15 – 12.00 Building a library in the Stuart period: the Queen’s College, Oxford, Bishop Thomas Smith, and Carlisle Cathedral Library?’ – Dr Matthew Shaw (Queen’s College, University of Oxford)

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch*

13.30 – 15.00 Speaking volumes: borrowings from Carlisle Cathedral Library in context – Dr Matthew Sangster

(University of Glasgow)

Cathedral libraries in context: introducing the Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online project – Prof Mark Towsey and Lois Wignall (University of Liverpool)

15.00 – 15.45 Roundtable discussion

15:45 – 16.00 Conclusion and close of study day