Enfilade

Following a five-year restoration, the 18th-century library at St Paul’s Cathedral is once again open to researchers and tourists (look for the the special Triforium Tour). From Architecture Today (6 November 2023).

Christopher Wren, St Paul’s Cathedral Library, following restoration; completed in 1709, the library is on the Triforium level, behind the southwest tower ((Photo by Graham Lacdao for St Paul’s Cathedral).

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Completed in 1709, the library reaches two stories high and contains more than 13,000 volumes of books and manuscripts, the oldest of which dates back to 1313. Here, Portland stone panelling surround a gallery, with these panels enamoured with deep, ornate carvings. Beneath, an array of brackets supporting the gallery enjoy decoration of equal measure, this time carved out of wood. (Recent research, however, uncovered the fact that the gallery walkway is cantilevered from the wall, with the brackets being purely decorative).

Christopher Wren, Dean’s Staircase, with ironwork by Jean Tijou (Photo by Richard Holltum, from August 2007, from the website of the World Monuments Fund).

Before work began on the restoration in 2018, the most significant changes to the library were the addition of electrical lights and a heating system in the early 1900s. In fact, the cathedral nearly didn’t have a library at all, with its collection almost entirely destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Following the damage, however, Sir Christopher Wren’s Library chamber was restocked by the cathedral’s Commissioners for rebuilding St Paul’s following the damage.

The £800,000 refurbishment, funded mostly through donations and benefactors of St Paul’s, saw books cleaned, walls re-painted, a new lighting scheme put in place, new desks for readers, as well as a new display case. Work was also done to the cantilevered gallery which was showing signs of sagging. . . .

“The Cathedral Library is a remarkable room, and remains one of Sir Christopher Wren’s great achievements. It is fitting that, as we mark 300 years since his death, his Library is able to reopen after five years of painstaking restoration,” the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Very Reverend Andrew Tremlett said in a statement. . . .

The full article is available here»