London’s most beautiful libraries

Standing on the busy intersection outside Bethnal Green tube, you might think you've stumbled across an out-of-place stately home in the middle of east London. You haven't. You're actually looking at the beautiful buildings of Bethnal Green Library, which first opened its doors way back in 1922. Today it boasts a fully-stocked library of treasures for both adults and children, as well as two hireable rooms for up to 100 people each. That's one massive book-slam just waiting to happen. 

This modern-but-pretty public library was opened in 2011 and now welcomes an average of 37,000 visitors per month. As well as reading material, the venue offers live music, theatre, author events and writing groups in its culture space.

This public library was the final building designed by English architect E Vincent Harris, who also built the damn fine-looking Manchester Central Library, among many other civic beauties. With nearly 50 years' worth of experience behind him when the project began in 1958, it’s no surprise his swansong is such a stunner – just check out that spacious floorplan and those bold, authoritative pillars.

Freemasons’ Hall, the eye-catching bombastic stone building where Long Acre becomes Great Queen Street, is the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England and the principal meeting place for Masonic Lodges in London. In addition to the Grand Temple, there is a library and museum, which houses a collection of Masonic material, and everyone from historians to conspiracy theorists is welcome to visit.

King’s College London’s main research library is a nineteenth-century neo-gothic building that was home to the Public Record Office before King’s bought it in 2001. The magnificent dodecagonal (12-sided) reading room featured in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and regularly receives filming requests, but its day-to-day purpose is as a space for actual learning. As such, you have to be a member to access it, though Maughan Library is usually open to the public as part of Open House. 

If there’s any confusion as to what this copper-clad minimalist beauty of a building is, the word ‘library’ is helpfully written in huge letters on its roof. The alien-like structure won the Stirling Prize for architecture in 2000 – the only local library to win so far – and between the interior’s space-age pods and bulbous wooden desks there’s a fantastic collection of works by black authors, the largest collection of African CDs in the borough and a great choice of graphic novels.

If you’re a fan of symmetry, you’ll love the brutalist exterior of the Swiss Cottage Library, while every element inside looks like a shot from a Wes Anderson film. It’s a dramatic swirl of mirror-image staircases and 1960s curves. The collection is strong on the philosophy and history front, and there’s a big open space where you can swot up in comfy chairs.

It’s been a Ministry of Information (during World War Two) and a Court of Justice (in ‘Batman Begins’) but this magnificently authoritative-looking building just north of the British Museum is also home to the central library of the University of London. The library occupies the building’s fourth-to-eighteenth floors and is ordinarily only open to members, but you can access it for reference purposes by purchasing a day ticket or the special summer membership. 

The School of Oriental and African Studies’ library is housed in this impressive concrete beast from mid-century master Denys Lasdun. Inside, Lasdun’s trademark brooding grey panels are offset with flashes of bronze-anodised aluminium trim, all of which is illuminated by a grid of pyramid-shaped ceiling lights. Anyone who thinks Brutalism can’t be beautiful ought to pay a visit immediately; the general public can apply for both reference and borrowing memberships. 

Full of squishy floor cushions and hanging copper lamps, the second floor of the Wellcome Collection is the comfiest spot in the capital to read up on medical history. The mezzanine library – free for those who sign up for membership – holds scientific treasures including an Ancient Egyptian prescription and the papers of scientist Francis Crick. Meanwhile the Reading Room below is a wonderland of cosy study spaces and gallery exhibits where you can play games and listen to poetry readings.

Just one of Greenwich’s many assets, this lovely library originally opened in 1907 and refurbished just over a century later. It features a gallery space (pictured), which displays the work of local artists, as well as the usual computers and books.