Can you go inside the Bodleian Library? What is free, and what needs a tour

The short answer

You can walk into the ground floor of the Weston Library on Broad Street without a ticket, every day it is open. You can walk around the Old Schools Quadrangle, the courtyard at the heart of the Old Library, whenever its gates are open. You can stand in Radcliffe Square and look at the Radcliffe Camera for as long as you like.

You cannot walk into the Old Library's historic rooms, Duke Humfrey's Library among them, or into the Radcliffe Camera, without a tour ticket. The library is explicit: visitors must join a guided library tour to go inside the Old Library, and a Radcliffe Camera tour to go inside the Radcliffe Camera.

Three buildings, three different answers

Much of the confusion comes from the name. The Bodleian Library is spread across three main buildings in the centre of Oxford, and each has its own rule for visitors.

The Old Library is the historic core: the Old Schools Quadrangle, built 1613–1624, with the Divinity School and Duke Humfrey's Library on its west side. The courtyard is open to walk around; the rooms need a guided tour.

The Radcliffe Camera, in Radcliffe Square just to the south, was built between 1737 and 1749 to designs by James Gibbs and paid for by the bequest of the royal physician John Radcliffe. It became part of the Bodleian in 1861 and was renamed the Radcliffe Camera, camera being Latin for room. It is a working library, and only its own dedicated tours go inside.

The Weston Library, on the north side of Broad Street, began life as the New Bodleian, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and built in 1937–40. It was completely renovated and reopened as the Weston Library in 2015, with large public spaces on the ground floor. That ground floor is free.

Why so much is behind a tour

The Bodleian is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and its historic buildings are still in daily use by students and scholars. Duke Humfrey's Library, which opened in 1488, is still a reading room. The Radcliffe Camera is a working library too. Letting visitors wander freely through rooms where people are reading would end the quiet that makes them work.

Conservation is the second reason. The library points out that many of its buildings are hundreds of years old and were designed for much lighter use than they now receive, so access has to be limited. Tours keep groups small, at 14 people for the library tours, and guided, so the rooms can be shown without being worn out.

The third is the University calendar. These rooms host graduations, Encaenia, internal meetings, private events and filming. On those days they close to visitors entirely, which is easier to manage with timed tours than with open doors.

What you can see for free

The Weston Library is the library's front door for the public. Its ground floor, Blackwell Hall, is free and open to everyone, and holds the Bodleian's exhibitions and displays drawn from its collections, the Bodleian Café, the main shop, a Space for Reading with books to browse, and the tour ticket desk. The library calls it a great place for a quick visit, and you do not need a ticket for the exhibitions.

The Weston Library is open Monday to Friday 9.00–17.00 and at weekends 10.00–17.00. Its main entrance is on Broad Street, up a wide set of steps with a ramp built into them. Inside, everything public is on one level and step-free.

Across the road, the Old Schools Quadrangle can be walked whenever its gates are open. It was built between 1613 and 1624 and still carries the painted names of the old schools above its doors. On the east side rises the Tower of the Five Orders, its columns stacked in the five classical orders. There is a small gift shop in the quadrangle too. It is free, it is beautiful, and it is where the guided tours begin.

What needs a ticket

Inside the Old Library, the rooms visitors come for are the Divinity School, Duke Humfrey's Library, Convocation House and Chancellor's Court. The 60-minute guided tour, the one we book, takes in all four. It starts in the Proscholium, the entrance hall of the Divinity School, and ends upstairs in Duke Humfrey's Library.

The Radcliffe Camera, built 1737–49 and Britain's first circular library, can only be entered on the library's dedicated Radcliffe Camera tours. It is not part of the 60-minute tour, and photography is not allowed inside it.

Being a student, a reader or an alumnus does not change this for visitors on a tour. The library asks everyone on a tour, including University of Oxford members and holders of a Bodleian reader card, to have a tour ticket.

How readers get in, and why visitors cannot

Readers, the people who use the library for study and research, are admitted through the library's own registration. Part of that process is a formal declaration, traditionally spoken aloud, in which new readers promise among other things not to remove or damage any book and not to bring fire or flame into the library. The promise dates from the days when the library had no heating, because fire was too great a risk to the books.

Reader registration exists for study and research. For a visitor who simply wants to see Duke Humfrey's Library, a guided tour is the way in, and in practice it is the better one: you get the history, the stories and the rooms that readers walk past every day without a second look.

Choosing the tour that covers the most

The library runs several kinds of visit, from walking tours of the city to tours focused on the Radcliffe Camera. If you want to see the Old Library properly in one go, the 60-minute guided tour is the one that covers the most ground inside it: the Divinity School, Convocation House, Chancellor's Court and Duke Humfrey's Library, all in a single hour with a guide.

It is also the tour with the clearest booking rhythm. All of its tickets are released online in advance, at 9am UK time on the 1st and 15th of each month, each release covering about a fortnight of dates. The library says that tour tickets often sell out online, and it cannot reserve places, so the practical plan is to book as soon as your date goes on sale.

Who cannot join

Children under 11 cannot join the library's guided tours of the Old Library. The library explains that the content is not suitable for children aged 10 and under, and that noise must be kept to a minimum in a working library. On the 60-minute tour, children aged 11 and over must come with an adult.

Families with younger children still have plenty to do here. The Weston Library welcomes families on its free ground floor, with exhibitions, a Space for Reading stocked with books for adults and children, and the Toddleian, a soft corner with books and toys for babies and toddlers behind the café. Children of all ages can also walk the Old Schools Quadrangle and Radcliffe Square.

Step-free access is the other consideration. The Divinity School, Convocation House and Chancellor's Court are wheelchair accessible, but Duke Humfrey's Library can only be reached by stairs and there is no lift. If anyone in your party has access needs, tell us before booking and we will raise them with the tours team.

Behaving like a reader for an hour

Once you are inside on a tour, the library asks for the manners of a reading room. Observe the quiet signs as you walk through the buildings, and keep your voice low in Duke Humfrey's Library, where people may be working at the desks.

Photography for personal use is welcome, but not with flash, video cameras, tripods or selfie sticks, and not of readers or staff. Bags should never be left unattended anywhere on the site, and there is no storage for large luggage, so a small bag is the easiest choice.

Planning the visit around the tour

A good Bodleian visit uses all three layers. Start in the Weston Library, which opens at 9am on weekdays and 10am at weekends: see the free exhibition, have a coffee, and cross Broad Street. Walk through the Great Gate into the Old Schools Quadrangle a few minutes before your tour time and find the glass doors behind the statue. After the hour inside, step out into Radcliffe Square for the Radcliffe Camera, a minute's walk south.

Allow about two hours in total for that loop at an easy pace. If you only have an hour in Oxford, use it for the tour; the free parts can be seen in the time it takes to walk between them.

Blackwell Hall is busiest from about 11am to 2pm and calmer before 11am and after 3pm on weekdays. If you have a choice of tour times, an afternoon tour pairs well with a quieter late lunch or tea in the café beforehand.

With more time, widen the circle. The Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Christopher Wren and built in 1664–69, stands behind the Divinity School on Broad Street, and visitors can climb to its cupola for a view over the centre. A few steps east along New College Lane is the covered bridge known as the Bridge of Sighs, completed in 1914 for Hertford College.

Getting your place

We are an independent booking service for the 60-minute tour. You choose a date and a tour time, pay one total in your own currency, and we buy your place on the library's own ticketing and email you the e-ticket. Our price includes that service.

If your date is not on sale yet or has sold out, you can hold it with us at no cost. We check the library's ticketing on the release morning and for places that come back, and only ask you to pay once we can book. If nothing opens, you are not charged.

Before anything is bought, we check the details that most often go wrong: that everyone in the party is 11 or over, that the date is not one of the library's event days, and that anyone who cannot manage stairs knows Duke Humfrey's Library has no lift. Ask us anything before you travel and a person will answer.