First Floor

The hub of activity at Bridwell Library is the first floor with the main desk front and center, along with offices of public services staff, three commodious reading rooms, and The Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Galleries. A major artwork related to Bridwell’s monuments of the British fine press movement may be seen in the Reception Hall just beyond the main desk. Around 1937 graphic artist, typographer, and sculptor Eric Gill created two large incised stone murals, scenes of the Creation and Paradise, for an Art Deco hotel in Lancashire. The stones were reinstalled in Bridwell Library and dedicated in 1980. A few smaller items, including a pencil drawing for the Bridwell reading room table lamps, and a broadside printed on the Albion hand press in the red room, and two linoleum prints by R. O. Hodgell in the green room, are also on display.