First meals held in Senior Library inaugurate exciting new normal

Kitchen facilities erected in Second Quad. A lift scaling the south-facing wall of the Senior Library building. Also a decant of the Senior Library’s collections. Dining tables and chairs and benches moved across from the College Dining Hall.

Following months of work, on Wednesday 15 November meals were held in the dining hall constructed in the Senior Library for the first time.

Now open, the space will be characterised by the same rhythm of life as the College Dining Hall would be were it a normal year.

Diners enter through the double-doors on the left-hand side of the James Wyatt Senior Library building in Second Quad, then ascend the switchback staircase and turn left.

The room before them has the look and feel of the Senior Library but tables stretch longitudinally between aisles and a wall adorned with portraiture segments the far end of the room, separating the dining space from a servery on the other side.

The move has been made so that the kitchen and buttery serving the College Dining Hall can be renovated as part of the East Range Project, and dining is set to return to its usual location by the end of 2024.