Central Catholic Library (London)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it.
Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (July 2006)

The Central Catholic Library is a large Catholic Library founded in 1694, and located on Lancing street in London. It is known for the 65,000 books and periodicals they own, and the broad range of subjects it covers.

In June 2007 the Library changed its name from "Catholic Central Library" to "Catholic National Library". There were several reasons for this but the most important was to reflect more closely the Library's role as a national resource.

The Catholic National Library currently houses MISSION REGISTERS which list baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths etc. dating back as early as 1694. These are typescripts and a few other printed books on loan from the Catholic Family History Society. The Library also houses the Thomas Merton Collection. The library was founded in 1912 and not 1694 as listed in the first paragraph; it holds registers from that date which probably caused the confusion. In 1694 the Catholic Church was not recognised in the UK and no library devoted to Catholicism would have been allowed to exist.

The library is no longer at the Lancing Street location. It has moved to:

St Michael's Abbey, Farnborough Road, Farnborough, Hants GU14 7NQ

It's opening times in 2007 are: Monday and Friday: 10:30am to 3:30pm 2nd Saturday each month: 10:30am to 3:30pm Other times, by appointment. Opening times will be adjusted depending on the numbers of visitors and volunteers.

It's web site address is: http://www.catholic-library.org.uk/