Radcliffe Camera

Description

The "Radcliffe Camera" in #Oxford is an iconic circular library building in Radcliffe Square. Funded by a £40,000 bequest from physician Dr. John Radcliffe, it was designed by James Gibbs in English Palladian style with baroque elements. Construction ran 1737-1749. It is England's earliest circular library: three external stages (rusticated base, columned middle, grand dome, the third-largest in Britain), two internal storeys with a gallery. Built in Headington and Taynton stone, it originally housed the Radcliffe Science Library and became a reading room for the Bodleian Library in 1860.