Oxford treasures

Beyond the Work of One — Oxford College Libraries and their Benefactors 
The Bodleian Library, Oxford, until 1 November, admission free

A few years ago, my old tutor, the much- missed Angus Macintyre of Magdalen College, gave me a letter that meant I could get into the Codrington Library — Nicholas Hawksmoor’s 1716 gem at All Souls: Gothic on the outside, classical on the inside. At the end of the letter, he wrote, ‘Welcome to the loveliest room in Europe!’

He was quite right; although other Oxford libraries run the Codrington a close joint second. The only problem is, it’s tricky getting inside them to have a gawp at their treasures without one of these letters.

How lovely that the treasures have now been hoiked out and put on display in a pretty little corner of the Bodleian Library’s Old Schools Quadrangle. And what treasures have been allowed out from 27 college collections, a Private Hall, the Oxford Union and the Bodleian Library.