A Fond Farewell

All good things must come to an end. When we first posted to this blog in December of 2014, I had relatively little experience with the NSLM collection. We had a collection of fantastic sporting materials, but much of it wasn’t in usable condition. Books were shelved in a disorganized fashion, it was easy to […]

The £1 Winner of the Grand National

On March 24, 1933, the 92nd Grand National was run at Aintree. This year’s race was noteworthy for more than the typical large crowds: every publication commented on the fine running and beautiful weather. A field of more than 30 horses made the iconic race of four-plus miles, and there were the usual falls and […]

The Jersey Act

In late 1947, William Woodward was absent from the Gimcrack Dinner, held at York. Woodward was the guest of honor, having won the Gimcrack Stakes with Black Tarquin. The Gimcrack Dinner was described by J. Fairfax-Blakeborough in The Chronicle of the Horse as “an occasion for historic speeches, for the announcement of new Turf policy, […]

The Grand Steeple Chace at Hog’s Norton

A book seller I recently talked with had a curious item for sale: a selection of plates depicting riders in a steeplechase race. The steeds were pigs, and so were the riders! The piece jogged my memory. We looked through the collection and found a piece from John Daniels’ ephemera collection: Grand Steeple Chace Run […]

Hunt Maps

An old proverb says that “good fences make good neighbors.” An equally-true corollary could be that clear boundaries do the same for foxhunting territories. In times of dispute, territories could be closely monitored to ensure no infractions across the boundaries. But more often, boundaries can be mapped to show which properties are open for hunting and […]

James Pollard, Coaching Painter

In July 1836, a stage coach at Walham Green suffered an accident: runaway horses overturned the coach and several passengers suffered broken limbs. One of the passengers was forcibly thrown from the coach, but escaped with only a strained back. That passenger was named James Pollard, a painter of coaches and carriages who was also […]

Horse Racing Resolutions, 1936

Now is the time when people set their resolutions for the new year. The Library’s main resolutions for 2019 are: (1) Complete setup of the Library’s new Digital Repository (2) Catalog the periodicals collection Speaking of the periodicals project, we were going through some old copies of Thoroughbred Record to catalog them, and picked up […]

“Stonehenge” and Rural Sports

The year before last, one of our books up for repair from our Book Adoption Program was written by John Henry Walsh (1810-1888), who wrote under the pseudonym “Stonehenge.” The book, called British Rural Sports, was adopted for restoration by John and Kelly Johnson. British Rural Sports is an all-in-one volume on 19th Century country […]

A Medallion With Heart

There are more things than books in the Library, and some of our most unusual items in the collection are stored in a tray in the Rare Book Room. The same tray has some of our unique, prehistoric materials as well as a small assortment of commemorative medallions and buttons. One medallion recently caught my […]

Sprucing up the Rare Book Room

The F. Ambrose Clark Rare Book Room at NSLM houses our rare collections. These collections include more than just books: manuscripts, typescripts, letters, panoramas, and other ephemera are housed there. Over the past 18 months, we have been working hard on reprocessing the collections in Rare Books. This project was brought to completion recently. We’ve […]