Visitor Information
Museum Address
96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, United Kingdom
London, UK
Ticket Prices
Free (exhibitions vary)
Featured Artists
11 artists in database
Cite or Embed Museum Guide
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The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the largest libraries in the world, holding over 170 million items. Located on Euston Road in London (with a second site in Boston Spa, Yorkshire), it receives a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland. The building opened in 1997 after decades of planning. Its red-brick exterior stands next to St Pancras station, and the interior centers on the King's Library Tower, a six-story glass cube holding George III's 65,000-volume collection.
The Sir John Ritblat Gallery displays the library's greatest treasures for free. These include two of the four surviving copies of Magna Carta (1215), the Lindisfarne Gospels (c. 700 AD), a Gutenberg Bible, original Beatles lyrics handwritten by John Lennon, and Leonardo da Vinci's notebook. The library also holds the Diamond Sutra (868 AD), the world's oldest dated printed book. Shakespeare's First Folio, Charlotte Brontë's handwritten manuscripts, and maps dating back centuries round out the collection. It isn't a traditional art museum, but few places put you this close to documents that shaped Western history.
