tavistock subscription librAry

founded 1799

Background
Late in 1796 four young Tavistokian men, aged 17-24, formed a Literary Club which they announced to the readership of The Weekly Entertainer on January 2nd 1797. The first minutes of the Tavistock Public Subscription Library record that ‘By these four the Institution was first projected and begun in the month of June in the year one thousand and seven hundred and ninety nine’. In 1810, the 6th Duke of Bedford became the President of the Library, a family connection which continued until 1964 when the Bedford Estate sold the Tavistock properties which had not been included in the ‘sale of the century’ before the Great War. The Library, threatened with closure, helped raise the money to buy Court Gate for the town and the Library became the tenants of the Town Council.  Many books had to be sold but the remaining collection was saved and housed in a small Reading Room alongside Court Gate. Here the Library remains

Building
Initially the Library, and perhaps the preceding Literary Club, was located in the upper floors of a bookshop, which it soon outgrew. A purpose-built library in the classical style was opened in 1822, nicknamed the Propylaeum. The Duke of Bedford, who owned most of Tavistock and the surrounding area, his family having been given the lands by Henry VIII at the Dissolution, decided to rebuild the centre of Tavistock, and the Propylaeum, being in the way, was demolished. In compensation, however, the Duke refurbished Court Gate, one of the old Abbey gates, as a purpose-built library and librarian’s cottage. The Library remains in one room of this building, whilst the old library and cottage now house Tavistock Museum. Court Gate dates from the 12th century. The arch and its adjacent walls and buildings were restored in the 1820s by John Foulston, working for the Duke of Bedford who, in 1830, offered the Subscription Library a permanent home there at a nominal rent.

Collection
By 1964 the reduced membership could no longer afford the various costs, including the modest rent charged after the initial fifteen years. Disbandment was averted by a radical reorganisation. All but the ground floor games room was relinquished to the new landlord, Tavistock Town Council. Much of the stock of books was sold and thenceforward the holding was restricted to works by local authors or those pertaining to the town and Dartmoor and latterly, after the town was included in the Cornish and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site,  the Tamar Valley. Under this regime an impressive collection has accumulated, ranging from the poetry of the 17th century William Browne to the contemporary fifteen volumes of Gerry Woodcock’s Tavistock’s Yesterdays and Transactions of the Devonshire Association from 1863.

Contact information
Simon Dell MBE, Chairman
Court Gate, Guildhall Square, Tavistock, Devonshire PL19 0AE
mob: 07845 176870

Membership
Over 120 members
Open to members for £16 individual and £24 joint annual subscription (2023/2024)

Visitors and Researchers are welcome by arrangement. The Library celebrates Heritage Open Days annually in September and is generally open on Friday mornings between 10 and 12 noon when they can learn more from members in attendance.

Website
http://tavistocksubscriptionlibrary.co.uk/

Status
Registered Charity Number 1118323