A cool car!

I went up to London this morning as I had organised an event for the parents' arts society - it was a tour of the British Library, both of the building and its treasures. The library is a fascinating place - did you know that as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK, and every British newspaper and magazine.This is also true of the national libraries of Scotland, of Wales, the University library of Cambridge, the Bodleian library in Oxford and Trinity College Library in Dublin. It is the national library of the UK and the largest library in the world (followed by the Library of Congress in Washington DC). 

Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum. The British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the museum, although the famous reading room (situated in the Great Court designed by Norman Foster) is still housed in the British Museum. The Library is now located in a purpose-built building next to St Pancras Station, and has a document storage centre and reading room near Boston Spa, in Yorkshire. What one sees above ground only contains about 1% of their collection, the rest is in 8 floors below ground or in Yorkshire.


We had a fascinating tour guide who showed us some incredible treasures - stamps costing millions of pounds, the original Magna Carta (well, one of them - there are four), exquisite hand drawn prayer books, and music scores by a plethora of famous composers - Handel, Mozart, Chopin, and notes of lyrics by the Beatles. It was well worth the visit!


I saw this rather cool car parked outside the swish St Pancras Hotel and rather liked the juxtapostion of the Gothic Revival building designed by George Gilbert Scott and the modern, but rero styled, car.