Come and explore 300 years of collecting history at our Burlington House premises as part of Open Fridays for our Sensing History project

10.30am-4pm FREE ENTRY (last admission 3.40pm)

Join us to celebrate the arrival of spring weather and longer, lighter days in style. This free drop-in event includes creative demonstrations, a display of illuminated texts from our special collections, musical performances by Cellist Clare O’Connell, and plenty of shiny surprises. Illuminated takes place in partnership with our Kelmscott Manor colleagues and their maker in residence, Sarah Davis.

Sarah Davis is a multimedia artist based in London. She uses traditional approaches with a deep historical resonance to explore the cyclical nature of recovery and renewal. Sarah has been practicing the endangered craft of illumination since 2020 and teaches widely on the subject. She was the Kelmscott Manor Maker in Residence for 2024 and spent the time focussing on the Art of Illumination.

Cellist Clare O’Connell is passionate about performing plays as a soloist and chamber musician and runs her own concert series Behind the Mirror, a space for experimental collaborative work. Her practise consists of a mix of performing, writing, commissioning and curating projects in which she collaborates with musicians and artists who inspire her. Her debut solo album The Isolated Cellist, a collection of ancient & modern music for solo and layered cello was released by Stone Records in April 2021, and she is currently preparing to release her second solo album of contemporary music with NMC Recordings, which will feature new commissions from Edmund Finnis, Emily Hall, Nick Martin, Natalie Klouda, Alex Mills and Emilie Levienaise Farrouch. She is supported by PRS Open Fund, the Hinrichsen Foundation, the Francis Routh Trust and the Vaughan Williams Foundation.

Open Fridays are part of our Sensing History at the Society of Antiquaries project, which is kindly supported by National Lottery Heritage Fund, John Murray Charitable Trust, Movement For Good, & Museum Development London.

PLEASE NOTE: Our lift is currently out of service so access to the Library is by stairs only currently. We hope this will be repaired by Friday but cannot guarantee this.