C of E archive finally has its own library building

[LAST YEAR saw the opening of the new library building at Lambeth Palace, headquarters of the Church of England. The library itself was founded in 1610 and is one of the earliest public libraries in the UK – yet until last year it had no purpose-built building to house it.

The unique and outstanding collection, the mission of which has been described as to ‘collect, preserve and make accessible the memory of the Church of England’ was previously split between the palace building and a remote site in Bermondsey. It now has its own meticulouslydesigned home, equipped with the facilities an important collection of historic documents and artefacts needs in these modern times.

The building – the first new building on the site of Lambeth Palace for 185 years – was designed by leading heritage architects Wright & Wright, whose previous achievements include library projects at Magdalen and St John’s Colleges in Oxford. The red brick building was completed in 2020, with the extensive collection of books, documents and artefacts – which includes such items as the Execution Warrant of Mary Queen of Scots and a pair of gloves reputedly worn by Charles I on the scaffold at the time of his execution.

The building is formed by two wings of five and four storeys and a central tower which rises to nine storeys. Towers are the signature of Lambeth Palace, so the new building sits within that tradition on the Grade One-listed site.

Significantly, storeys three to eight have no windows: they are given over to the airlocked rooms housing the collections. The top floor of the tower houses a viewing platform which it is planned to open to the public periodically.

According to Lambeth Palace’s description of the new building: “Care for our internationally important collections is at the heart of the design. The new building replaces inadequate facilities in a warehouse in Bermondsey and cramped accommodation in thirteen separate rooms within Lambeth Palace, many of which lacked fire suppression and were difficult to control environmentally. By contrast, all stores in the new library are temperature and humidity controlled and have fire suppression systems.”

The new library has no basement because of the risk of flooding from the nearby Thames. It has been built with sustainability a primary concern and has achieved a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ rating.

Declan Kelly, director of libraries and archives at Lambeth Palace Library, commented: “Given that the primary focus was protecting the collections…the brief insisted on largely passive environmental control from a team designing with whole-life performance in mind. This has been achieved through the dense structure, which minimises fire risk and energy inputs, with almost half our energy needs now supplied by rooftop solar panels.” q