Bodleian Library 60-minute guided tour
The Divinity School, Convocation House, Chancellor's Court and Duke Humfrey's Library with a guide, in a group of 14 at most.
One place on the Bodleian Library's 60-minute guided tour for one visitor aged 11 or over, on the date and tour time you choose. The tour starts in the Proscholium of the Old Library on Catte Street and ends in Duke Humfrey's Library, the Bodleian's oldest reading room.
What the tour covers
The Divinity School, built 1424–1488, with over 400 crests carved into its ceiling; Convocation House, the fan-vaulted 17th-century parliament house; and Chancellor's Court, the University's old courtroom with its 1630s dock.
The tour ends upstairs in Duke Humfrey's Library, opened in 1488 and refitted by Thomas Bodley for 1602, under painted ceiling panels and beside a reading booth built for Charles I.
On the day
Walk through the Great Gate on Catte Street into the Old Schools Quadrangle and go to the glass doors behind the statue, the Proscholium. Show one ticket per visitor, on your phone or printed.
The guide speaks English; written translations are available on request before the start. The group is no larger than 14, and you finish in Duke Humfrey's after about an hour.
Who this tour is not for
Children under 11 cannot join, and the tour climbs stairs with no lift to reach Duke Humfrey's Library. It does not go inside the Radcliffe Camera, which has separate tours we do not book.