Bromley House was built in 1752 for George Smith, grandson of the founder of Smith’s Bank, the oldest known provincial bank in the country. The building has been designated Grade II* listed status and contains many interesting period features, some fine paintings and a large walled garden at the rear.
We’ve produced a bite-sized booklet on the history of the library The Story of Bromley House Library.
After outgrowing our initial home on Carlton Street, we moved to Bromley House in 1821, a four-storey townhouse built in 1752, which is centrally situated in the city on Angel Row.
The main part of the library is housed in a series of reading rooms with plaster ceilings, cornices and overmantels. A particularly fine spiral staircase and gallery is a feature of the largest room – these were added by the library some years after moving to Bromley House.
The membership of the library was originally gained through the purchase of a share – capped at 265 members. Membership covered the whole household. As well as literature, the library gained a reputation for its collections relating to history and science, including being the initial home of Nottingham’s Natural History Society, the site of Nottingham’s meridian line (which still survives to this day) and the home of the first photographic studio in the Midlands in 1841. Mathematician and physicist, George Green, was among the early members.
Financial pressures led to the conversion of the ground floor of the building to create lettable space for shops in 1929.
We obtained charitable status in 1998 and the cap on membership was lifted, opening up membership to all adults on payment of an annual subscription. Our membership has more than tripled since we became a charity.
Some interesting things about us you might not know
We have a Meridian Line
Today we keep our watches and clocks showing the correct time by referring to the famous six pips of the Greenwich Time Signal which has been broadcast by the BBC since 1924. But how was the time set before that?
Sundials were one solution, but a Meridian line was more accurate. These consisted of a fine line on the floor, and a shutter by a window with a small aperture in it. The line was orientated to point due North/ South so that at the solar noon, the small patch of sunlight passing through the shutter would cross the line.
Few meridian lines survive in England but Bromley House has one, assembled in 1836 and fully working. Uniquely we also have a 1830 longcase clock inscribed with the time differences across the country – Nottingham time was 4 minutes 33 seconds behind Greenwich, and 4 minutes 10 seconds behind St Paul’s, London.
You can find our Meridian Line in the Standfast Room.
We were the site of the first photographic studio in the Midlands
In 1839, Frenchman Louis Daguerre presented to the world his exciting new invention; the daguerreotype, a means of producing a permanent image using a camera obscura.
Local businessman Alfred Barber saw great potential in this invention and just two years later he set up a photographic studio in the attics of Bromley House. The roof was altered so that a revolving skylight containing blue glass could be fitted to cast flattering light onto the subject below. He also purchased, at great expense, a licence to produce daguerreotypes together with the materials required. The first photograph taken in the Bromley House Studio was in September 1841.
This is believed to have been one of the first commercial photographic studios in the country and certainly the first in the Midlands, providing a unique opportunity for the people of Nottingham and the East Midlands to have their portrait produced relatively cheaply rather than commissioning a painter. Although Barber’s tenure at Bromley House was rather short-lived, the photographic studio continued to be used very successfully until 1955.