Only the librarian could remove the books from the chain using a key.
The books were typically shelved with their foredges facing the reader, rather than their spines.
By the late 1800s, the practice of chaining books to the shelves died out.
Today only a handful of chained libraries exist, solely for the sake of preservation.
The Hereford Gospels is the oldest volume in the library.
The Church dates from the 11th century but the library was created only in the 16th century.
The building and the interior of the library have remained almost unchanged throughout the ages.
The old books are still chained to their ancient wooden desk.
The library has 356 separate items catalogued, of which some 80 still have their chains intact.
These attachments, however, are modern and date from the restoration of the decaying porch room in 1884.
The library has several rare collections that were printed before the 1500s.
The library itself was founded near the end of the 16th century.
From then till 1800, many notable collections were added to the library.
It was founded in 1686.
The library has about 150 books all in chains.
The library still has books chained to the sloping desk with iron-wrought chains.
The earliest book in the collection is a Pliny Naturalis Historiae printed in Venice in 1472.
Sources:Medieval Fragments/Shaney Crawford/Atlas Obscura/Wikipedia
