By Michael Mullett

Lancaster University has many treasures for book-lovers, but a recent most generous loan has now put the University's Library in the front rank of national collections. The university has recently acquired the holdings of the late second baron Hesketh, of an old Lancashire family originating at the beautiful Rufford Old Hall, near Ormskirk. And the very good news for our readers is that the Hesketh Collection is now open, free of charge, to visitors from the general public, daily, Monday to Saturday, 10-4, Sunday 1-4, in the University Ruskin Library Building, until 22 December. Expect to be entranced when you visit this exhibition. For one thing, the building that houses it, the John Ruskin library, is the glory of the University's, sometimes nondescript architecture: a white stone oval alluding to the eye of knowledge and gleaming in the sun of the lovely autumn days we have been having.

Once inside the building’s bronze doors, further delights await you. To start with there is the 'Birds of America' (1840-44) exhibition, the immense, astonishingly lovely, definitive ornithology by James John Audobon. I guarantee you that Audobon will bring colour into your life even on a winter’s day as will another Hesketh treasure, the exquisite water-colours in 'Les Roses' (1817-24) by the French artist Pierre Joseph Redoute. There is considerable 'Catholic interest' in this fine exhibition. The vividly coloured 'Le Pas de la Mort' (c. 1500) belongs to what is for us today a strange medieval religious sub-cult, that of the power of death. A richly illuminated 'book of hours' from the fifteenth century provides a splendid example of the daily prayer manuals with which pious late medieval Christians spaced their daily prayers. The still startlingly clear illustrations once focused their devout thoughts -- on the mysteries of the Rosary, the lives of the saints and so on. Mary Queen of Scots was the Catholic claimant to Queen Elizabeth's throne. Her own book of hours is kept at Stonyhurst College, while the Hesketh Library cherishes the letters from her imprisonment in England in the years down to her execution in 1587.

Please feel very welcome to come and find out about these and other treasures during this month. The university is on the A6 between M6 junction 33 and Lancaster centre, and there are also frequent buses from the city centre (2, 2x, 2a, 3 and 4) which will put you down gently in an underpass just below the Ruskin building.