The Kedermister Library, at

Langley Langley may refer to: People * Langley (surname), a common English surname, including a list of notable people with the name * Dawn Langley Simmons (1922–2000), English author and biographer * Elizabeth Langley (born 1933), Canadian perfor ...

near

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4 ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

(formerly

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

), is a rare surviving example of an early 17th-century parish

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

, preserved in situ in the decorated cupboards designed for it in 1620 in the parish church of St Mary the Virgin. The original vellum catalogue dated in 1638, is still hanging in the library. Founded around 1613 by Sir John Kedermister (d. 1631), it was established to provide for the education of the rector of St. Mary's, and presented to the church in perpetuity by Sir John. A catalogue of the Library listing 307 volumes survives from 1638. A large portion of the library still exists and, with the contemporary catalogue, provides insight into scholarship and

book collecting Book collecting is the collecting of books, including seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining whatever books are of interest to a given collector. The love of books is ''bibliophilia'', and someo ...

in the 17th century. The library is only open from June-September by appointment only. Two of the Library's treasures, the ''Kedermister Gospels'' (an 11th-century illuminated manuscript) and the ''Pharmacopolium or a booke of Medicine'' (a manuscript

herbal A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them.Arber, p. 14. A herbal m ...

of 1630) are on permanent deposit in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

. Langley, also known as

Langley Marish Langley, also known as Langley Marish, is a suburb of Slough in Berkshire, South East England. It is east of the town centre of Slough, and west of Charing Cross in Central London. It was a separate civil parish until the 1930s, when the b ...

, was formerly in the county of

, and the Kedermister Library is overseen by

Buckinghamshire County Council Buckinghamshire County Council was the upper-tier local authority for the administrative county and later the non-metropolitan county of Buckinghamshire, in England, the United Kingdom established in 1889 following the Local Government Act 1888 ...

and governed by a charitable trust. The name Kedermister is the most commonly used, though some sources, including the charity governing the library, use the spelling Kederminster.

Further information

*Jane Francis: The Kedermister Library: an account of its origins and a reconstruction of its contents and arrangement; ''Records of Buckinghamshire'' Volume 36 1994 pp. 62–85; ISSN 0967-2885

References

External links

Kedermister Library website
at

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies Buckinghamshire Archives (prior to 2020 the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies) is the county record office for Buckinghamshire, England. It houses the former Buckinghamshire Record Office and the former Buckinghamshire Local Studies Library. It ...

(NB: using the spelling Kederminster)
Slough History Online: Kedermister LibraryKedermister Library website
{{Authority control 1613 establishments in England Buildings and structures in Slough History of Buckinghamshire Libraries in Berkshire

Further information

See also

References

External links