2014
TL4459 : The Pepys Library, Magdalene College
taken 10 years ago, near to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
The Pepys Library, Magdalene College
This is the west front. The only building in the college not made out of brick, it is built from Ketton Stone.
According to the college website: "Much of the carpentry is shoddy. The staircases might well be pleasingly up to standard for the 1670s, but the whole construction in the garrets is surprisingly sketchy for collegiate use. The west front is delightful, but only a moment's considered contemplation is needed to reveal a lopsided rhythm in it, since it is in fact slightly asymmetric: the middle window on the first floor is not central, the distance between the second and third windows is greater than that between their equivalent pair on the other side, and so on."
The frieze inscription reads "Bibliotheca Pepysiana 1724", the date Samuel Pepys's collection of books arrived at Magdalene (where he had been a student). His library comprises exactly 3,000 volumes, and the story goes that whenever he acquired a new title, another had to be discarded in order to keep the number the same.
Pepys's diary for 1660 to 1669, written in a type of shorthand, in six volumes is housed here.
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