AN illustrated talk to be held in Crediton at the end of the month will hopefully raise funds towards conservation work to the Thomas Ley Memorial in Crediton Parish Church.

Thomas Ley, a former Chaplin and Vicar of Crediton who died in 1720/1, left in his will an extensive library which he had compiled through his lifetime to the Governors’ at Holy Cross.

For many years this library of nearly 2,500 books and pamphlets was stored securely behind two sturdy doors in the parvise room above the south porch.

In 1968 this library collection was transferred to Exeter University where the library contents were able to be conserved thanks to grant funding and are now available to students and others for research purposes.

On Wednesday, October 31, the church will welcome to the Boniface Centre at 7.30pm Anna-Lujz Gilbert, a PhD student from Exeter University, who will give an illustrated talk about the Holy Cross Crediton library.

After completing a masters’ degree in 2015 Anna worked for the National Trust where she developed her enthusiasm for heritage collections.

In 2017, she returned to university to pursue a PhD on Devon’s early parish libraries, including the Crediton parish library.

The Crediton library is the largest of four church libraries now housed at the University.

This talk will give an historical overview of the library, how it was set up and why, before looking in more depth at some of the more unexpected items in the collection.

Through these examples, the audience will get a sense of what it was like to read books in the first few centuries after the invention of the printing press, and why Crediton’s parish library is so valuable.

At the time of the death of Rev Thomas Ley books were expensive items and could be difficult to get hold of, so the gift was of real significance for a provincial town such as Crediton.

The church hope a good-sized audience will attend this intriguing talk as few residents of Crediton today can have ever seen any of the books and pamphlets.

Admission will be just £5 and include light refreshments.

Six volumes from the library are still held at Holy Cross and the church Governors have kindly agreed that three of these can be moved to the Boniface Centre for the evening of the talk.

Proceeds from the evening will go towards the conservation cleaning costs of the Thomas Ley memorial situated on the south wall of the south choir aisle at Holy Cross.