Literary & Philosophical Society

About Literary & Philosophical Society

The Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne was founded in 1793 as a conversation club and is now the largest independent library outside London, holding over 150,000 volumes across a galleried Victorian reading room on Westgate Road. The crucial point for visitors is that anyone can come into the building and use the collections free of charge. Membership is only needed to borrow, so the reading room is effectively a free public room in the middle of the city, and an extraordinarily quiet one.

It has been woven into the intellectual life of Tyneside for over two centuries, and the building itself, with its high bookcases, ladders, busts and reading desks, is the attraction as much as the holdings. It is a working silent library, which makes it a poor choice with small children and a very good one with teenagers or on your own with an hour to spend. It sits a couple of minutes from Central Station, next door to The Common Room in Neville Hall.

Featured in These Guides

Blog posts and guides that feature Literary & Philosophical Society.

Dickens Festival North Comes to Newcastle from 17 November

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The castle that named the city, the first public room lit by electric light, a fair larger than Central Park and a vampire rabbit above a cathedral door: verified facts about Newcastle upon Tyne.

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A complete guide to the city centre: how it fits together, what to do with two hours or a full day, and where to go for museums, the Quayside, food, shopping, children, sport and the seasonal calendar.

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Newcastle has four free museums and galleries, a Grade I listed covered market, two miles of medieval town wall, a thousand acres of common land and a free organ recital every Monday. Here is what genuinely costs nothing, and what used to be free but is not any more.