Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the caryatids, tacked onto the east end, which are modelled on the Erechtheion on the
Acropolis - though the Euston Road ladies had to be truncated at the waist after they
were found to be too tall. The best time to visit the interior, which features a dramatically
lit Ionic colonnade in the apse, and some lovely Victorian stained glass, is during one of
the free Thursday lunchtime recitals. There are also regular art exhibitions held in the
atmospheric
Crypt Gallery
(
W
cryptgallery.org.uk), with access from Duke's Road.
King's Cross St Pancras
he area around
King's Cross
and
St Pancras
stations is always buzzing with buses, cars,
commuters, tourists and, with the massive ongoing development behind King's Cross
Station, construction workers. Architecturally, it's dominated by
St Pancras Station
, the
most glorious of London's red-brick Victorian edifices, which overshadows its two
neighbours: workaday
King's Cross Station
and the red-brick brutalist
British Library
,
home to some of the nation's most precious books and documents.
7
British Library
96 Euston Rd • Mon-Fri 9.30am-6pm, Tues till 8pm, Sat 9.30am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm •
T
020 7412 7332,
W
bl.uk •
!
King's Cross St Pancras
As one of the country's most expensive public buildings, the
British Library
took flak
from all sides during its construction: few readers wanted to move out of the splendid
Round Reading Room in the British Museum, where the library had been since the
1850s; the number of extra readers' seats was negligible and the shelving inadequate;
and, to top it all, the design was criticized by Prince Charles, who compared it to an
academy for secret policemen. Yet, while it's true that Colin St John Wilson's penchant
for red-brick brutalism is horribly out of fashion, the library has proved popular both
with the scholars who use it and the public who visit the superb galleries.
he
piazza
features Eduardo Paolozzi's giant statue of Isaac Newton bent double
over his protractor, inspired by William Blake - just one of a number of specially
commissioned artworks. Look out, too, for Bill Woodrow's
Book, Ball & Chain
sofa
and R.B. Kitaj's unsettling giant tapestry,
If not, not
, both in the main foyer, and
Patrick Hughes' optical illusion,
Paradoxymoron
, near the basement cloakroom. The
spiritual heart of the building is a multistorey glass-walled tower housing the vast
King's Library
, collected by George III and donated by George IV in 1823. The library
puts on a wide variety of events, including talks, films and occasional live
performances, and has several cafés, a restaurant and free wi-fi.
John Ritblat Gallery; Treasures of the British Library
The dimly lit
John Ritblat Gallery
is where the BL's ancient manuscripts, maps and
precious books are permanently displayed. The sheer variety of sacred texts displayed is
overwhelming, from illuminated Torahs to richly decorated Qur'ans (Korans), from a
tiny palm-leaf glorification of the Hindu goddess Jagannatha in the shape of a cow to
folding books on the life of the Buddha. The richly illustrated
Lindisfarne Gospels
,
begun in 698 AD, is always on display, as is the fourth century AD Codex Sinaiticus,
one of the earliest Greek Bibles in the world, and the thousand-year-old manuscript of
the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. In the section on printing, you can see the world's
earliest-dated printed document, along with the
Gutenberg Bible
, from 1454-55, the
first Bible printed using movable type (and therefore capable of being mass-produced).
The most famous of the
historical documents
is the
Magna Carta
, King John's
agreement with his rebellious barons in 1215, on display in a room of its own. Other
exhibits change from time to time, and could be anything from Thomas More's last letter
to Henry VIII to Lenin's application for a British Library pass. Among the
literature
,
there's
Shakespeare's First Folio from 1623, Jane Austen's notebooks and writing desk and
the touchingly beautiful handwritten and illustrated copy of
Alice in Wonderland
given by
