That jewel of a place …… in the centre of the city

I admit I am biased, not least because I first walked through the doors of Central Ref a full 54 years ago and continue to do so.

Walking in, 2023

Back then it was the impressive Social Sciences Library on the first floor, circular in design  which enabled you to hear a whispered conversation at fifteen desks away as well as picking up on the deafening sound of a book being dropped on a table.

And a decade and a bit ago  after a long holiday I was back in the Archives and Local History Library, researching heaps of things.

I joined all the others who had relocated to Deansgate during the long refit and makeover, and like them made my way back to the newly restored and reconfigured building.

In the months after it reopened I marveled at all those people who came just to look at what had been achieved.

And yesterday I was there for my weekly drop in, taking a few pictures before heading out into the city.

Leaving, 2023

And just after I had finished, Philip and Margaret added their own memories.  In the case of Philip this included a commemorative handkerchief, issued when the Ref opened, which is only the second such souvenir I have come across. 

"The Heirloom" 1934

"Genuinely a wonderful building and resource, even more so after modernisation and access to records. 

I remember being in awe at it, especially the domed area. 

The uniformed attendants, that spacious echo, church-like in its ability to suppress your childish urge to make a noise and listen to the echo. 

As you say Andrew, the dropping of a book into a table was canon like, heads lifted to find the transgressor. 

Simply a wonderful anchor to Civic Pride, long gone I fear. I have a framed family 'heirloom', a commemorative handkerchief, a little time worn, of the opening on July 17th, 1934 by their Majesties King George & Queen Mary."

To which Margaret Copeland has added, "I worked in the stacks in the basement in 1964. Along with a group of teenagers we had a whale of a time. Supposedly there to move books around we had trolley races and even sent the smallest girl up to the reference library desk in the dumb waiter lift. 

Later on, I worked in the Technical Library which ran around the circular reference library. Left alone on the Enquiry Desk with an array of telephones, I’d be terrified that one would ring.Location; Central Ref."

Pictures; inside Central Ref, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson  and the 'heirloom' courtesy of Philip Gregson