Lambeth Palace Library – 3 July 2010

The Lambeth Palace Library is celebrating its 400 year anniversary, with a display of some of its most famous treasures.




Although the display is contained in just one large room, it takes an hour to cover the room with the audio tour. There was a great variety of books and manuscripts, from a copy of the Guttenburg Bible, to Mary Queen of Scots death warrant. The book we found most fascinating was a first edition of Foxe's Actes and Monuments of the Church, more commonly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, opened at the page showing the illustration of Bishop Hooper being burnt at the stake. As Bishop Hooper is in the family tree it was a rather fortuitous coincidence.

Next door is the Garden Museum, who were giving a discounted entry to ticket holders from the Library exhibition. The Museum is small, but has a nice garden, where they serve most excellent vegetarian salads. The current exhibition features the gardens of Great Dixter, and Christopher Lloyd, who developed them. As we have visited these wonderful gardens twice (in different seasons), we found this most interesting.

Following lunch, we went back to the library for two of their lectures. The first featured a book about the Danse Macbre. We had been introduced to this in Slovenia, when we visited the wonderful painted church there. The speaker featured this church in his talk. The second lecture was a most illuminating discussion on the background to several witch and anti-exorcism tracts in the Library collection.

A pleasant walk along the Thames took us back to the underground.