Radcliffe Camera

The Radcliffe Camera sits at the center of Radcliffe Square as a heavy, circular limestone drum topped by a prominent dome. Built in the seventeen thirties and forties, it houses a reading room for the Bodleian Library. It exists because Dr. John Radcliffe, a royal physician with a prickly reputation for insulting his patients, left money in his will for a scientific library. His estate paid for this structure, though the university shifted his focus toward general literature and history long ago.