The National Trust’s libraries are important for their range of original and fine bindings.

In the first place they contain tens of thousands of ordinary bindings which have survived unaltered in their original condition: as a proportion of the total, far more than would be found in most research libraries.

These range from plain medieval bindings with wooden boards, right through to mass-produced late Victorian books in mint condition. There are hundreds of early trade bindings, and from the 18th and 19th centuries considerable numbers of books in boards and wrappers.

Almost all of these bindings are of interest to specialists, but in addition several of the libraries include collections of fine bindings.

The finest of all, perhaps, is the great collection of French bindings at Waddesdon, the Rothschild house in Buckinghamshire, but Blickling Hall in Norfolk, with marvellous Renaissance bindings from France and Italy, is hardly less fine.

Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge, has magnificent examples of the best English work of the 18th or 19th centuries, while at Kingston Lacy in Dorset the famous Jean de Planche binding is by any standards quite outstanding.

Nearly all the older libraries have a finely bound set of Bibles or Prayer Books, often presented to mark a confirmation, a birthday or a marriage: Charlecote, with two ‘cathedral’ bindings given to Mary Elizabeth Lucy on her wedding day in 1813 is typical.

Wimpole Hall has a large number of presentation copies associated with members of the University of Cambridge, regarded by those who have examined them to be one of the most impressive collections of Cambridge bindings in existence.