About Leominster Library

Leominster Library is provided by Herefordshire Council’s library services.  That is a wonderful service to the community.

It was founded in 1892 at 14 South Street (opposite the Royal Oak hotel.  It was at that time a ‘Reference and Newspaper’ library, not a lending library, and was funded and run by Leominster Borough Council.

In 1895 it became a lending library with a stock of 4,000 books, which for the most part were donated by the public.  It was open one morning, one afternoon and one evening each week and had a part-time librarian whose salary was £70 per year.

So it continued as a valuable and valued local resource in the days before mass media and when homes rarely had a home library.  It became part of the Herefordshire County Library Service by and was inaugurated by none other than J B Priestley.

In 1946 opening hours were extended and by 1970 its premises were extended into 12 South Street.

In 1974 there was a huge reorganisation of local government which tried to combine Herefordshire and Worcestershire and the library became part of the library service of the two counties.

Miss Mary Ball, who was appointed librarian in 1941, retired in 1980 after 39 years as the ‘face’ of the library.  Mr Peter Holliday was appointed.  Under his guidance Leominster Library became a Group Library with responsibility for libraries at Kington, Weobley, Tenbury and Leintwardine.

At much the same time a campaign for a new library building began.  That came to fruition in 1993 when the newly-built premises at Buttercross were opened with a two-week cultural festival with readings, poetry, soloist music and the Alberni String Quartet.  These were major events in the town and there was a step-change in library loans, which topped 250,000 in the first year at Buttercross.

In 2000 there was (yet another) local government reorganisation and the library service including Leominster was taken over by Herefordshire Council.  However, following international financial turmoil in 2008 (the so-called ‘Banking Crisis’) all local authorities were starved of cash and by 2011 the library was threatened with closure.

A campaign to save the library was fought and The Friends of Leominster Library was formed to to support it.  In 2013 severe financial cuts were made to the service but the library was saved from closure.

There are now four full-time staff serving modern rooms, computer facilities and it offers audio books and films for loan as well as its thousands of books.  Each service is backed up by the other libraries in the county and readers can order titles from any library in the county to be collected at Leominster.

Many think that it is easy to save money by limiting or closing the library, but the loss to the community would be a disaster.  There continues to be a need for vigilance.