Jessica Hepburn is an unlikely athlete. However, in her forties, following a succession of hard and sad life experiences she began to try to exercise her way out of heartbreak. She has become one of the world’s most extraordinary endurance athletes. The first and only woman on the planet to have swum the English Channel,… Continue reading Save Me from the Waves – Jessica Hepburn

To mark the work on our historic library and also to celebrate the centenary of the Holly Lodge Estate we offer a “pop-up” play about the great 19th century philanthropist who owned the original Holly Lodge estate. Come and take a part if you wish, or simply enjoy the dramatic events of her life unfolding.… Continue reading Angela Burdett Coutts – Empress of Holly Lodge: a pop up play – Beth Shaw and Martin Bould

Leonard Clark was one of the most popular poets of the twentieth century for adults and children. Although he lived the last thirty years of his life in Highgate, where he served as a school inspector, much of his best work drew upon his boyhood memories in Gloucestershire. These landscapes inspired some of his best-loved… Continue reading Leonard Clark

The Book-Makers is a celebration of 550 years of the printed book, told through the lives of eighteen extraordinary men and women who took the book in radical new directions: printers and binders, publishers and artists, paper-makers and library founders. This is a story of skill, craft, mess, cunning, triumph, improvisation, and error. Come and… Continue reading The Book-makers: A history of the book in 18 remarkable lives – Adam Smyth

Among the many important political and social reforms of the mid-19th century was the Public Libraries Act of 1850. While this allowed municipal boroughs to establish public libraries, few were built until Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. Then, private philanthropy saw the construction of a vast number of libraries, and by 1914, 62 per… Continue reading The English Public Library 1850-1939 – Susie Barson