The Kayton Library celebrates its reopening with a Rare Books Display

To celebrate the return to School, The Kayton Library is displaying some items from the last time that St Paul’s reopened after a crisis.

The School suffered a lengthy closure because of the plague of the 1660s and then the destruction of the buildings by the Great Fire of London. Old Paulines were asked to support the rebuilding, and they are now displaying two of the books donated in 1675 by Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist. They are also showing some teaching materials from the 1700s, including a hornbook and a copybook, both used to teach handwriting.