Inside the Maughan: From Medieval Chapel to King's Most Stunning Study Space

Gate that leads to Maughan Library at King's College London

I keep getting further behind on blogging! As soon as I catch up, we have visited more sites that I need to write about. Plus, I had to take some time to actually work on my research paper.

So, here we are at Maughan Library at King's College London, pronounced like "lawn" as noted on an entrance sign. We met our guide, Pablo. Oh, poor Pablo! The person scheduled to give us our tour cancelled at the last minute and Pablo, senior library assistant, had to step in. The poor guy was not given enough time to prepare, especially for twenty inquisitive library grad students. Therefore, the tour was not as informative as most and I left fairly confused about what I had seen. As a result, I had to look up the background information about this library.

I discovered that the site has an 800-year-old history and was established first as a House of Converts for Jews who were forced into Christianity in 1232. By the 14th c. it had become The Rolls Estate and housed the Master of Rolls and included The Rolls Chapel. The chapel has a history of being rebuilt, altered, and finally mostly demolished, but we toured a surviving section that has stained glass windows, a mosaic floor, and funerary monuments from the 16th & 17th centuries. This is now referred to the Weston Room (below).

The Weston Room

Stained glass windows in the Weston Room

The Tudor Rose - part of the mosaic floor in the Weston Room

Construction of a Neo-Gothic building began on the site in 1851 that was to be the Public Records Office. King's College London then obtained the building in 2001 whereby it underwent an extensive renovation and it opened as a university library in 2002. The library has over 750,000 items, but as Pablo informed us, access is mainly restricted to current King’s College students—even alumni need special approval to use it. And Pablo elaborated that they do not typically help international students!

The dodecagonal Reading Room

Built in 1863 during the expansion of the Public Record Office, the stunning Reading Room is dodecagonal—meaning 12-sided (a new word for my vocabulary!). There were a handful of King's College students studying away under those lights while we were there, but it is currently a quiet time for the library since it is the summer.

A shot of the modern stacks and staircase that leads to a mezzanine

Besides the Reading & Weston Rooms, the majority of the library has a more contemporary feel to it. The check-out area was very modern with brightly-colored lounge couches and the picture above illustrates this as well in the book stacks.

Next up is the British Museum Archive!

Maughan Library - Wikipedia

Maughan Library - King's College London