We were delighted to be approached by one of our members who offered a visit to Middle Temple’s library and its exhibition on its sixteenth to eighteenth century Spanish connections.

The tour proved to be an immediate sell out, with the ticket price shared between raising funds for the BritishSpanish Society’s 2025 Scholarship Programme, and Middle Temple’s rare book restoration fund.

Luck was with us, and with no scheduled events we were able to spend time inside the impressive Middle Temple Hall. We were led through the imposing wooden doors marking the entrance to the Hall. The last of the day’s light flooded through the historic stained-glass windows (saved from destruction during WWII by careful, piece by piece removal and reconstruction), our eyes feasted on the paintings, the panelling and the windows, struggled to decide what to focus on first. Head of the Library, Dr Renae Slatterley, spoke of the panels around the hall commemorating past readers, the dark wooden doorways (whose doors are locked when members are in session) believed to date back to the Huguenots, and the centuries long connection Middle Temple has with the USA and its role in setting up the American law system.

Our group was made up of non-legal minds, and legal professionals, including one member who reminisced about her time at Middle Temple in the early days of her legal career.  We were equally entranced by the Hall and its history.

Once we had soaked up the Hogwart’s atmosphere of the hall we made our way through a long corridor, adorned with more commemorative wooden panels, to the library. The library was founded by member Robert Ashley, who bequeathed several books, including Spanish texts, to the library on his death in 1641.  The gothic building which once housed the library was destroyed during the war, and replaced by a modern library, designed by architect Edward Moff in 1958 to provide a bright and light building for students. Our visit explored many of the books displayed in the exhibition, taking in early modern Spanish books on war, religion, medicine, etiquette, colonialism and the Americas. Of special note was volume two of literary great Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote.

Whilst the focus of the tour was the books, much time was spent with Molloneux’ impressive globes, with many members searching to see how the ‘Gulf of México’ was named in the 16^th century.

For those unable to attend the visit please enjoy the online exhibition: https://www.juncture-digital.org/middletemplelibrary/spanish-connections