London’s most beautiful libraries

Standing on the busy intersection outside Bethnal Green tube, you might think you've stumbled across an out-of-place stately home in the middle of east London. The gorgeous building is actually the home of Bethnal Green Library, which has been serving up reading material to the good people of east London since 1922. Today, it boasts a fully-stocked library of treasures for both adults and children, as well as two hireable rooms for up to 100 people each. That's one massive book-slam just waiting to happen. 

This modern-but-pretty public library was opened in 2011 and now welcomes an average of 37,000 visitors per month. As well as tons of books, DVDs and CDs for your lending pleasure, it also boasts live music, theatre, author events and writing groups in its culture space, plus areas to study in and rooms you can hire for meetings.

This public library was the final building designed by English architect E Vincent Harris, who also built the damn fine-looking Manchester Central Library, among many other civic beauties. With nearly 50 years' worth of experience behind him when the project began in 1958, it’s no surprise his swansong is such a stunner. Its authoritative pillars aren’t the only eye candy to be found here, though. Head outside to the south of the building and you’ll find sculptures of a lion and a unicorn, created by Scottish artist William McMillan.

Freemasons’ Hall, the eye-catching bombastic stone building where Long Acre becomes Great Queen Street, is the headquarters of the United Grand Lodge of England and the principal meeting place for Masonic Lodges in London. The building houses the Grand Temple and a museum dedicated to Freemasonry, plus a library where you can delve through heaps of Masonic material and literature, even if you’re not part of the secretive society.

Bill Bryson, Sebastian Faulks, Joanne Trollope: nope, not this year’s Man Booker shortlistees, but a rundown of famous writers who are all members of The London Library. It’s the Shoreditch House of book stacks: you pay a subscription fee (around £565 per year), but you don’t have to talk to anyone. It’s no new endeavour, though – the library was founded by Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle in 1841 as a reaction to policies at the British Museum Library that he disagreed with. Members can borrow books from its 17 miles of shelves for an absurdly long time (or until another member requests the same one). For those not on the bestseller list, the library hosts free evening tours twice a month: just keep an eagle eye on its website to book a place.

Poetry fans will fall in love with this free to visit library on the fifth floor of the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, overlooking the Thames. Its rainbow-hued shelves house the largest public collection of modern poetry in the world. It's got an impressive pedigree too: founded by the Arts Council in 1953, it was opened by none other than TS Eliot, before relocating to this site in 1988, where Seamus Heaney had the honour of opening its facilities.

Fifth Floor, Royal Festival Hall. Belvedere Road, SE1 8XX. Open Wednesday-Sunday 12noon-8pm; Tuesday 12noon-6pm.

How to join: Simply turn up at the library with a form of photo ID and a bill sent to your home address within the last three months. 

King’s College London’s main research library is a nineteenth-century neo-gothic building that was home to the Public Record Office before King’s bought it in 2001. The magnificent dodecagonal (12-sided) reading room featured in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and regularly receives filming requests, but its day-to-day purpose is as a space for actual learning. As such, you have to be a member to access it, but Maughan Library is usually open to the public as part of the annual Open House event. 

From the outside, you wouldn't necessarily describe this hulking red brick behemoth of a library as beautiful. But it's definitely awe-inspiring. Architect Sir Colin St John Wilson's design for this library took a whopping 36 years to build (longer than many cathedrals) thanks to the substantial challenges involved in housing a copy of over 170 million library items. Underground, a five storey-deep basement houses this gigantic collection, which includes every work printed in the English language. And above ground, the scale of this library's holdings is referenced by the majestic towering bookshelves that reach up over the heads of visitors. You can't actually borrow books here unless you're doing research, but bibliophiles will love its regular exhibitions celebrating the printed word in all its forms.

Euston Road. NW1 2DB. Open Monday-Thursday 9.30am-8pm; Friday 9.30am-6pm; Saturday 9.30am-5pm; Sunday 11am-5pm.

How to join: You can use the library's public spaces to work. Or apply for a free Reader's Pass if you are researching a specific topic and wish to request library items. 

This gorgeous library is hidden away within the V&A, but once you've been in you'll wonder how you never noticed it. Its collection is packed with tomes on subjects relevant to the pieces you’ll find across the museum, including everything from prints and drawings to woodwork, textiles and metalwork. As a major public reference library, it’s free to join – all you need to do is provide ID with proof of address. Or you can just peer in through the glass in its huge double doors.

If there’s any confusion as to what this copper-clad minimalist beauty of a building is, the word ‘library’ is helpfully written in huge letters on its roof. The alien-like structure won the Stirling Prize for architecture in 2000 – the only local library to win so far. Inside, you’ll find yet more architectural delights, like the space-age pods and bulbous wooden desks, but also a unique collection that will give you a new perspective. It boasts a vast range of works by Black authors, the most extensive collection of African CDs in the borough and a great choice of graphic novels.

If you’re a fan of symmetry, you’ll love the brutalist exterior of the Swiss Cottage Library, while the inside will please Wes Anderson heads, with every element of its interior looking like a shot from one of the great director's films. It’s a dramatic swirl of mirror-image staircases and 1960s curves. The collection is strong on the philosophy and history front, and there’s a big open space where you can swot up in comfy chairs.

It’s been a Ministry of Information (during World War Two) and a Court of Justice (in ‘Batman Begins’) but this magnificently authoritative-looking building just north of the British Museum is also home to the central library of the University of London. The library, which spans the fourth-to-eighteenth floors, is usually only open to members, but it has a host of memberships available, or you can purchase a day ticket for just £5.

The School of Oriental and African Studies’ library is housed in this impressive concrete beast from mid-century master Denys Lasdun. Inside, Lasdun’s trademark brooding grey panels are offset with flashes of bronze-anodised aluminium trim, all of which is illuminated by a grid of pyramid-shaped ceiling lights. Anyone who thinks Brutalism can’t be beautiful ought to pay a visit immediately; the general public can apply for both reference and borrowing memberships. 

North Londoners will have spotted UCL's rather fancy library from the bus window on their way into town – it's housed in the university's famous domed main building. The Flaxman Gallery (pictured) makes a stunning centrepiece to the library's hushed corridors – so stunning, in fact, that it starred in Christopher Nolan's 'Inception'. Access to the library is limited to those who actually need to use the books, but you can register online for a membership (although you won’t be allowed to take books out of the venue).

Full of squishy floor cushions and hanging copper lamps, the second floor of the Wellcome Collection is the comfiest spot in the capital to read up on medical history. The mezzanine library – free for those who sign up for membership – holds scientific treasures including an Ancient Egyptian prescription and the papers of scientist Francis Crick. Meanwhile the Reading Room below is a wonderland of cosy study spaces and gallery exhibits, while events like workshops and poetry readings are also held here from time to time.

Just one of Greenwich’s many assets, this lovely library was initially opened in 1907 and was refurbished just over a century later. It features a gallery space (pictured), which displays the work of local artists, as well as the usual computers and books. Want to get your creative juices flowing? Join one of the library’s writing groups or other activities and get inspired.