Here at King’s Inns we are dedicated to preserving the cultural heritage placed in our care, which has been built up over the centuries. Among our collection are thousands of books, covering a range of subject matters, some dating as far back as the 14th century, in varying states of preservation. A lot of maintenance is involved in taking care of these books and the costs involved are considerable and ongoing. It would be easier and less expensive for us to send out our damaged books and replace the binding entirely using cheap, new materials. However this action would compromise the integrity and the historical context of the books, not to mention completely stripping them of their original aesthetic beauty.

King’s Inns wishes to operate from a conservation standpoint. What this means is that we wish to restore books from our heritage collection using a conservation book binder. This specialised binding process ensures that wherever possible, as much of the original binding is kept and used, integrating it into any new binding elements required. A good example of how this works visually can be seen in our Magna Carta project.