Major New Book on Chetham's launched

Chetham's has long lacked an architectural history of any merit, and we're delighted that this deficiency has now been remedied. Here is the text of the Yale University Press publicity release:

The History and Architecture of
Chetham's School and Library
By Clare Hartwell

Chetham's School and Library is the most complete late-medieval residential complex to survive in the north west of England.

Located in the heart of Manchester, Chetham's originally housed the clergy and choristers from neighbouring Manchester Cathedral. Following the Reformation the link with the Cathedral was severed and it was acquired by the Earls of Derby who later let it to John Dee. A century later Humphrey Chetham, a prosperous Manchester merchant, converted the building into a charity school and free public library.

Today the school has been re established as a co-educational music school and the Library celebrates its 350th anniversary. This fully illustrated book, full of new and previously unpublished documentation, provides the first comprehensive account of the Chetham's building and its turbulent history.

Forgotten in many general pictures of English architectural history, Hartwell manages to place Chetham's firmly back on the historical map. She offers new insights into a little studied building type and provides fascinating details of the seventeenth-century conversion, drawn from original documents, which describe how the building was adapted.

Clare Hartwell is a freelance architectural historian and writer. She is author of the Pevsner Architectural Guide to Manchester 2001, which was very well received.

The History and Architecture of Chetham's School and Library by Clare Hartwell will be published on the 22nd April 2004 at 25.00. For further details or to arrange an interview with author please contact Katie Harris, Press Officer, Yale University Press, Tel: 020 7079 4900, Fax: 020 7079 4901
Email: katie.harris@yaleup.co.uk

The book is available direct from Yale University Press and from all good booksellers.