The Old Library () is a historic building on the north side of King Street, Bristol, England. It was built in 1738–40 and has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building. Until 1906 it housed the main collections of Bristol's public library, which was one of the first in England when it was founded in 1613 on the same site. Users of the library included Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Humphry Davy. From 1779 the building also contained one of the country's first public displays of fossils. History Founded in 1613, Bristol's public library was only preceded in England by those of Norwich in 1608 and Ipswich in 1612. It was originally housed in the King Street lodge of Bristol merchant Robert Redwood, who donated it to Bristol Corporation. When this building decayed the city replaced it in 1738–40 on the same site. In 1772 the King Street library was taken over by the Bristol Library Society, a subscription library. Over time its private membership would include Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey and Humphry Davy. Southey joined in 1793 and his very first borrowing, William Enfield's History of Philosophy, contained utopian material which gave him ideas for a "Southeyopolis", recorded in his correspondence of that year. This was months in advance of his development of Pantisocracy with Coleridge in 1794. In 1795 his borrowings of Classical history books corresponded to topics he was covering in a series of public lectures in Bristol. In the 19th century, complaints were recorded both by the Bristol Library Society, which wanted the space occupied by the city's collection for its own books, and by the Bristol public, who were denied access to both collections. The city eventually ejected the Society, making the library free to the public from 1856. In 1876 after a refurbishment it was renamed as the Central Library. In 1899 Vincent Stuckey Lean left a bequest of £50,000 for a new library building. As a result, in 1906 the library was moved to the newly built Bristol Central Library on College Green. The King Street building eventually became a restaurant. Architecture and fittings The present King Street building dates from 1738–40. It was built in the early Georgian Palladian style, with a 5-window front including a 3-window centre with a pediment. The shallow porch, which has fluted Composite columns, is unobtrusive in a similar way to