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You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend

Norrington Room

 

Blackwell's Books in Oxford is popular with tourists. Most

visitors simply browse the piles of Harry Potter, Inspector Morse, Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis books and then leave. But if you take the stairs leading downstairs, you’ll find the Norrington Room, a huge basement of academic books.

The store first opened in the 1870s at 50 Broad Street, but was successful enough that it grew to take over some of the neighboring buildings. But by the 1960s, it had grown so large that there was nowhere to go but down, so the original Victorian basement of the space was excavated and turned into the cavernous room you see today.

The Norrington Room was named after Sir Arthur Norrington, who was then President of Trinity College. At the time of its creation, it was the world’s largest single display of books in one room, holding over 150,000 volumes on two and a half miles of shelves.

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Uploaded on December 12, 2023
Taken on October 18, 2023