British Museum Reading Room reopens to public

The British Museum in London has reopened its circular reading room to visitors with short free tours from July 23.

The Reading Room, 42.6 m in diameter, was built between 1854 and 1857 to a design by Sydney Smirke (1798-1877) using cast iron, concrete and glass. Its fame lies in its dome, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, with a papier-mâché ceiling. Famous users of its 4.8 km of bookcases and 40 km of shelves have included Karl Marx, Lenin, Virginia Woolf, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1997 the books were transferred to the new purpose-built British Library building at St Pancras.

The reading room has since been restored and reopened to house a modern information center and a collection of 25,000 books, catalogs, and other printed materials. It was used for special exhibitions from 2007 to 2013 and currently houses the museum’s archives, which are accessible to students and researchers.

The general public can now visit the museum without a ticket during opening hours, with free 20-minute tours every Tuesday at 11am and 12pm. Each tour can accommodate up to 20 people, with places allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Photography will not be permitted in the reading room.