ABSTRACT
On Saturday 6 November 1869 Emily Hall recorded in her diary that while shopping about London, in pouring rain she had ‘discussed the plans for altering the house & making a library with Mr. Shaw=his plans won’t do-in some respects=but we have now fairly broken the ice-taken the first steps-& shall I hope go on successfully’.1 Emily’s hopes for a successful venture into what she termed ‘bricks and mortar mania’ would in the short term at least, prove somewhat in vain.
