Chetham's

I had a tour of Chetham's Library this afternoon, founded in the mid 17th century in a beautiful medieval building which was already over 200 years old when the library started so I should think it is the oldest building in Manchester. It's full of treasures, from the original furniture to the reading room where Karl Marx studied. There was a letter from Sir Walter Raleigh, I got to handle a book that used to belong to Henry VIII and Ben Johnson's book of Plato's writings that he had written in - he bought it new for £4 and the library bought it for £3/7/6 because it had been defaced!