A visit to the Library of Innerpeffray, near the Perthshire town of Crieff, is a must for history and book lovers. Founded around 1680 by David Drummond, third Lord Madertie, it is the oldest public lending library in Scotland. The library initially comprised Drummond’s personal collection of books which he stored in the 16th-century St Mary’s Chapel and made available to local people to borrow free of charge.

In the mid-1700s, Robert Hay Drummond commissioned a new building for the library adjacent to the chapel and the books are housed there still. On a recent visit, we were greeted as we arrived by Lara Haggerty, Keeper of the Books, who explained the origins of the library, its expansion into the current building and some of the highlights of the collection. Before we started the tour, we got to choose a souvenir bookmark featuring woodcut illustrations from some of the collection’s 16th and 17th century books, and emboss it with the library’s stamp.

Among the books and papers displayed in the cabinets in the main room is the borrowers’ register. Dating from 1747, the register is a record of which books were borrowed and who borrowed them. It includes not just names but also addresses, occupations and the borrower’s relationship to other borrowers or local families. Each person who borrowed a book signed a pledge to return it. This register provides a continuous record of the library’s borrowers over a period of more than 200 years until it stopped lending books in 1968.

Visiting the library is not a new idea and a visitors’ book begun in 1857 contains tens of thousands of signatures including those of well-known visitors. These include Dr Elsie Inglis, Founder of Scottish Women’s Suffrage Federation and Scottish Women’s Hospitals, who visited in 1887, and American entertainer Bing Crosby who visited in 1926.

I was especially interested to see the oldest book in the collection which was published on the continent in 1476 and is a copy of a work written by 13th century Scots philosopher and Franciscan monk John Duns Scotus. The detailed notes in the margins show it was well used and read closely by its original owners, possibly the Franciscan monastery of Villigen in Germany.

Another of the library’s oldest books is Pierre Belon’s La nature et diversité des poissons printed in Paris in 1555. Illustrated with all sorts of fish and other aquatic creatures, Poisson is pocket-sized and would have been the perfect guide to take along on fishing trips or sailing outings. As well as drawings of real fish and other sea creatures, Belon included mythical animals. My favourite of all the illustrations was one of these, the monkfish below. Trinity College, Cambridge has a digital version of the same book where you can see more of Belon’s illustrated guide to 16th century fish.

More details about the library, its collections and how to book a visit are on the library website: https://innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/