Wormsley Estate Library

Wormsley Library holds one of the oldest and rarest collections of books in the world. It also holds treasured artefacts such as copied out letters that date back to the fire of London, written by Samuel Pepys.

Sir Paul Getty's enthusiasm meant that he became a knowledgeable collector. I hope that one day maybe I can be like him and own a magnificent library like the Wormsley library which is famous on a world stage for its collection.

The major theme of the library is rare art books that Sir Paul travelled extensively to collect. My mother managed to snap up some very rare tickets to be specially invited to the Wormsley Estate. It was part of the open house weekend. We drove an hour outside London into Bukinghamshire.

As we reached the granite, ugly looking gates of the estate, we punched in the secrete code to enter the Estate. When we entered and as we drove up to the main house, we were able to take in our surroundings which were breathtaking; as with all estates they want to impress upon their vistors their wealth and status.

When I entered the library and the amazing estate (which is in the film "All the Good Money") I was very impressed. The library is like a temple to books within. I am very lucky to have been able to see the beautiful Wormsley estate library. It was a true privalage to see the copyied letters that Samuel Pepys wrote at the time of the Great fire of London.

While I was there, the librarian took a special interest in me as I had told him that I had worked as a librarian. He kindly showed me around the amazing library and showed me some original copies of letters from Samuel Pepys' Diary which were hand written by the great man himself. Seeing those letters written during the Great Fire really was incredible. The Great Fire of 1666 was an absolute travesty for books within London, as so many went up in flames. Therefore any of the surviving books ended up going to amazing libraries, like the Wormsley Estate Library, which could look after these ancient texts properly and with due care.

I loved seeing some very old bibles, that were made entirely from vellum (sheeps' skin). They were made before the printing press was invented, so before the 16th century, and the writing was done by scribes who were trained to use a quill and were masters of the art of calligraphy. It was beautiful.

The Librarian had been at the Wormsley estate for 30 years and therefore he was very knowledgeable of the collection. He only goes into the library once a week, when it is not open to the public, to make sure that the air conditioning stays working and to keep everything in order. He told me that the biggest enemy towards is humidity and causes decay. The air conditioning helps to preserve the books and keeps dust away which is also a major killer of books.

In the library there was a very rare chair that was called the philosopher's chair, which I liked enormously. It was not built for comfort, which one would have thought it would be. However, there is a school of thought that when you sit in a uncomfortable chair it provokes even more thoughts and thinking than if you were comfortable, so perhaps this explains why.

The library and the link it has to the church is a very close one. When one thinks about it, the Wormsley library mostly consisted of old religious manuscripts, which needed a sacred place to keep them safe; a books heaven. No wonder the roof of the library was painted like stars of a constellation. The library had a lot of rare books which truly deserved a sacred temple to guard them.

My overall thoughts on the library, was that it must have taken a lot of skill and talent to organise such a rare book collection privately. Sir John Paul Getty is a man to be admired as he was the main founder of the library. He was a novice librarian and organised the collection himself. He would travel to collect rare books especially from Italy. The library itself is truly breathtaking it feels as if one is going back in time to a greek temple filled with fantastic treasures.