The Old Library
The Old Library
Queens' is one of the very few colleges which had a room specifically designed to house a Library. This room has now been in continuous use as a Library for over 560 years.
The Old Library lies on an east-west axis, with one row of plain glass windows looking south onto Old Court to use the maximum available light, and windows on the north side which originally looked onto the buildings of a Carmelite Friary.
The internal design of the Library room comprised ten two-tier reading lecterns arranged to stand out from the walls. The bookshelves now in use were made in part from these lecterns. The locations of the chain-bars and the positions of the sloping reading desks are still traceable.