12
Doctor Plume when hee was last att the Corporacion” [19] marked the
occasion of his presentation of the building to the borough.
Secondly, he chose to reconstruct the tower of the previous church
despite the considerable expense involved and although it was irrelevant
to his principal project of housing his books. Indeed he chose to have the
tower rebuilt in a traditional “Gothic” style, using traditional church
building materials, cemented stone rubble with freestone dressings,
whereas his secular library building on the site of the church nave is in a
contrasting domestic style, of brick with a slate roof and wooden,
rectangular window frames.
Thirdly, the juxtaposition of tower and library in contrasting styles
was deliberate. It looks bizarre but is thereby more clearly a statement
about the relationship of the English Church to the English State. They
are shown as separate, distinguishably different institutions but linked
as one body in which the key to Learning (the Library and the
Schoolroom) is held by the Church, because entry to both rooms is
through the Tower which remained the property of All Saints and St
Peter’s parishes. Within, a series of journeyman portraits of monarchs
and prelates [20] line the walls and bookcase ends, parading for us his
veneration of the twin institutions of Monarchy and Episcopal
Government. Archbishop William Laud’s portrait (twice the size of any
of the others) dominates the room. Here, as in the design of the
buildings. is a deliberate association of secular power—the
Magistrate—with spiritual authority—the Clergy—which was to
prevail in much of England until the late 19th century as the partnership
of Squires and Parsons.
Whilst bequests of books to a parish or borough were not unusual in
17
th century England, it was unusual to provide them with a
purpose-built home such as this one. Most bequests had to be housed
wherever the legatees could find a space, often in part of a parish church
(
as in the chamber over the porch of St Mary’s Chelmsford, for Dr
Knightbridge’s Library) or in a house owned by the parish (as in St
Nicholas’ Parish, Newcastle Upon Tyne). Sometimes the donors
provided suggestions: William Petyt expected his books to be placed in
an existing “Library erected in