Manchester/Scotland 2025 - Manchester John Ryland's Library Entrance

 

I didn't know much about Manchester, or what place of interest to visit. Manchester was more of a stopover place for me to visit my friends. Besides, I was only there for a day or two. During my brief  research on the place, I decided that the  only MUST-DO place for me to visit was the library. It was highly recommended, so it was the first place I head to after our check-in and rest at the hotel. Above is one of the beautiful windows of the library. It was probably the best place in Manchester for me :)

Luckily Manchester was a very walkable city. We actually spent zero money on transportation apart from the airport bus to the hotel. That's what I call a great city! The library was around 15mins walk from our hotel. Manchester reminded me a lot like Australia. It was very bright and new, unlike London. The building along the walk there was beautiful, and I will blog separately on that under my City Walk post. Above is the front of the library from the main road. I was kinda disappointed at the entrance. I didn't even know where the main door was! 

But all is forgotten when I saw lovely gargoyles on the pillars of the building. So French! I don't know why, gargoyles reminded me only of French architecture, always. I didn't quite like it that the building walls were red in colour either. What a weird colour for a sober place like a library. 

Turning in to the small alley, we found the main door leading inside.1900 Library it says! And it looked pretty modern. Well, the entrance into, and up the stairs was renovated, and looked sparkly and new. But it was the inside that was the highlight for me. 

The moment we stepped into the old hall way, it was WOW all the way. It immediately takes you back into 1900! Or I imagine what it was like there. The old walls, and the natural light shinning in from the glass windows. And this was only the hall way in to the old library. When the website said an ancient library, I wasn't really expecting gothic church like building! The hall way marks an entrance into an almost religious site for me :P

There were some rooms with big wooden doors long the hallway, but most were off limits to visitors. Some has signs outside indicating that these were conference room, meeting rooms! It reminded you that this was a library with working staff inside. Very office like! But can you imagine having a work meeting here? How awesome would that be!

I took a peek into one of the conference room, and above is what it looked like. The wooden walls and furniture was amazing! I half expected to see a chandelier or candles lighting up the room, but they were unfortunately fitted with modern electrical lightings. There was also a white board and a TV inside as one would expect to see inside any conference room.....

Moving along at the end of the hall was a printing press. It looked majestic, and didn't look anything like what I imagined a printing press would look like. I think there will be a clearer up-closed photo of it in my next post (I do the photos and writing on separate days....)

So to mark my being here, I took a selfie of me and the hallway behind me. Wow! I haven't even reached the library yet! And already, Wow!

Here is a wefie of us. We went really early in the morning, so it was crowded at all. There are signs that asked visitors not to linger too long along the hall way, but since it was almost empty, no one came to shoo us away :)  The advantage of being early ;)