16 years between the laying of the foundation stone in 1982 and the opening in 1998. The Independent explains the delay: "The reason it has taken so long to build ... has relatively little to do with the competence, or otherwise, of architect and contractors. The project has been toyed with by successive governments. The building was designed for a different site in Bloomsbury. Time was wasted when it had to be redesigned to fit the eventual site alongside St Pancras Station. Successive governments have trimmed the budget. Each time they have done so, Colin St John Wilson and his team have had to redesign parts of the building."
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
British Library
Commemorated ati
British Library- Foundation Stone
The British Library H.R.H. The Prince of Wales unveiled this stone 7 Decembe...
Opening of the British Library
This inscription is opposite the entrance, below the Shakespeare statue.
This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
British Library
Creations i
British Library - Anne Frank
The tree itself is almost entirely lost, half buried in a modern planting sch...
Other Subjects
Sir Robert Cotton
Antiquarian and politician. Born Robert Bruce Cotton in Denton, Huntingdonshire. He entered parliament in 1601, as the member for Newtown, Isle of Wight. His collection of manuscripts which became ...
1 memorial
Tate Galleries
Four art galleries. The original was founded in Millbank in 1897, as the National Gallery of British Art. It was renamed in 1932 after Henry Tate who had laid the foundations for the collection. Ta...
1 memorial
Willesden Library
The newly built up Willesden area was provided with a library, completed in 1894. It was extended at the back in 1907, part funded by Andrew Carnegie. The whole back section was rebuilt with addit...
1 memorial
British Film Institute
In 1996 the BFI erected 126 plaques across Britain to commemorate the centenary of cinema. See the pdf.
16 memorials
Sir John Summerson
Museum curator and architectural historian. Born John Newenham Summerson at Barnstead, Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. He taught at Edinburgh College of Art, and had professorships at Oxford and Camb...
1 memorial
Previously viewed
War dead, WW1
1 memorial
St Dunstans WW1 cross
E1, Stepney High Street, St Dunstans and All Saints
The Celtic cross is decorated with twisted rope in the arms with 'IHS' at the centre - see the Teddington Cross for more information on t...
2 subjects commemorated
The Honourable Conrad Adderly Dillon
Connected with the Chelsea Temperance Society for 21 years, he was actively engaged in the national temperance organizations and in the development of the “Royal Army Temperance Association” of whi...
1 memorial
Robert Atkinson & A. F. B. Anderson
Architects active in the 1930s. Also built the Grade II listed Swiss Cottage Regency Lodge, the huge block of flats that occupies the southern section of the Swiss Cottage gyratory and other blocks...
1 memorial
1 memorial
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