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Chetham's Library
Long Millgate
Manchester
M3 1SB
Tel: 0161 834 7961
Fax: 0161 839 5797
Email:
Printed works and general enquiries: Michael
Powell
Manuscript and archival enquiries: Jane
Muskett
Systems and cataloguing: Fergus
Wilde
Please read the page for the Chetham Society for contact details concerning the Society or its publications.
Chetham's Library is open by appointment Monday to Friday 9.00-12.30 a.m. and 1.30-4.30 p.m. The Library is normally closed during bank and public holidays. Please read on for details of access arrangements.
Use of the library is free, and no membership or reader's ticket is required. The Library is open to readers and researchers by appointment, and an appointment to visit should be made at least 24 hours in advance in order to consult library materials. You are welcome to make an appointment by email, phone, or letter, but please be sure to allow time for us to reply if email or letter are used. Please do not consider the sending of an email or letter an appointment until we've replied! New readers should bring a letter of reference or some form of identification.
This plan of the city centre shows the general location of Chetham's (80k), and this detail of the surrounding streets (210k: © Andrew Taylor, whom we thank for permission to display a detail of his Manchester City Centre map) shows how to negotiate the one-way systems and pedestrianised streets. Multimap provides an alternative commercial version (includes adverts - off our site). If you have arranged to drive to the Library (see below), you may wish to note that vehicles coming from Deansgate or the south have to go around the north side of the Arena via Victoria Street, Great Ducie Street, New Bridge Street and Cheetham Hill Road as the only vehicular route to the gatehouse is from Corporation Street via Todd Street.
If you would like to bring in a study group to work on any aspect of the Library's holdings, please contact us as far in advance as possible. We will do our best to accommodate your needs.
Visitors wishing to see over the Library and its historic buildings are normally welcome to call in without appointment during opening hours; please arrive before 4.00 p.m. Occasionally, however, it may not be possible to enter certain areas, or even to come in at all, so if you are planning to travel a distance, if you want to bring a group, or if your visit is of particular importance please make arrangements in advance.
Guided tours for groups are available on Wednesday afternoons during school term time and are accompanied by a school concert by pupils of Chetham's School of Music. Organisers will need to complete a booking form, available on request. These Wednesday tours tend to be booked up well ahead, so if you would like to organise a tour for a group we would advise you to contact us at the number above as early as possible. For reasons of safety and limited space, the size of groups is strictly limited to a maximum of thirty. We regret that from autumn 2005 there will be a charge of three pounds per head for such tours.
Tours begin with the concert at 1.30 p.m., after which there is a short break in which coffee tea and biscuits may be had at £1 per head. The tour of the buildings usually begins at about 2.30 and lasts for approximately 45 minutes.
Access to the historic first-floor library is via a flight of eighteen stairs, and regrettably no lift can be installed. Wheelchair users and others unable to manage the stairs have full access to the collections by the use of ground floor study rooms; the shelves are not 'browsable' by any reader, so those working from the ground floor enjoy equal access to the collections with those able to ascend. Please contact us in advance with details of your requirements.
Parking on site is available only to holders of disabled parking permits or similar recognised permits. There is a multi-storey car park at the nearby Manchester Evening News Arena, the entrance to which is on Trinity Way.
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