The Society's library contains an extensive collection of books, including journals from most British archaeological societies. The library has developed since 1849 through the purchase, exchange and  presentation of books, pamphlets, prints and periodicals which now amount to an estimated 8,000 items. Its most important acquisition was the antiquarian collection of the historian J P Earwaker (1847-95), which relates to all aspects of Cheshire's history. The library continues to grow through private gifts and particularly through exchange copies of journals from similar bodies throughout the United Kingdom.  cc 

Although the main emphasis is on local archaeology and history, the collection also covers such subject areas as religion, the arts, languages (including dialect glossaries) literature and general archaeology and history. The library also contains many pamphlets, dating back to the sixteenth century and including a large number of printed sermons. There are also several bound volumes of local newspapers including the Chester Courant from 1827 to 1845 and the Chester Chronicle from 1782 to 1842.  

The library's map and print collection numbers approximately 1,200 items, which illustrate places in Cheshire and its surrounding counties and include examples of the work of Nathaniel Buck and T Landseer. There are also many late nineteenth-century photographs of Cheshire buildings.  

The Society also owns important manuscript collections. Among the most important are those of J P Earwaker, relating to most of Cheshire, but especially to Macclesfield Hundred; Canon Rupert H Morris, including the material on which he based his Chester in the Plantagenet and Tudor Reigns (1894); and the papers of Cotton of Combermere (d 1865), who was Commander-in-Chief in India from 1825 to 1830.  

The Oral History Collection was created in the 1980s. It contains recollections of life in Chester during the past century, reflected in over 120 interviews recorded on cassette tapes. In addition to a master collection of the tapes and their transcripts, copies of the tapes are available for loan; search copies of the transcripts may be consulted in the library. Abstracts and subject indexes of the interviews are also available.  

Access  

Volumes which come under the heading of 'local studies' are currently housed at Chester  History and Heritage in St Michael's Church in Bridge Street Row East, where members enjoy the benefit of an exclusive loans service. The collection of journals is now housed in the Seaborne Library on the main campus of the University of Chester, where it is  available for reference only by members of the Society, students and the general public; please sign in at the library helpdesk. The Society's collection of manuscripts is cared for at the Cheshire County Record Office in Duke Street.  The 'rare books', together with the Society's remarkable collection of maps and prints, remain in the Town Hall vaults, while other publications are currently housed in a store at an out-of-town location; both groups are unfortunately inaccessible for the moment. We are working to rationalise the Society's library holdings and make them all publicly accessible once more.