The designs for the Library were made just after those for the Breakfast Room. Many of the designs within this section show both the Library and the Breakfast Room together, and given the double doors leading directly from one room to another and the similarity of objects displayed within the rooms, it seems evident that the two formed a pair in Soane’s design process.

The earliest designs for the Library interior can really be seen in designs 190 to 193 of the Breakfast Room scheme (later altered to such). The bookcases set within arched niches as in drawings 206 and 207, were reduced in height in the following drawings, providing space for niches to hold busts, cinerary urns and so on. The ceiling from the start takes the form of a ribbed, four-armed 'starfish' ceiling with a section of moulding spatially extending and dividing the room.

The Library was restored at the same time as the Breakfast room, in 1986.

Virginia Brilliant's TS Pitzhanger catalogue has been instrumental to the creation of this catalogue.

Matilda Burn 2010