In 1750, Trinity possessed one of the largest and finest academic library buildings in Europe. The sense of awe that the eighteenth-century visitor would have experienced on entering the Long Room is evoked by James Malton in the description that accompanied his print (see Plate 4): ‘we are instantly struck with unspeakable reverence and respect for the place; as if feeling the air impregnated with an emanation of religion and learning…’tis scarcely possible for the most boisterous and unthinking to enter, but with silent humiliation and whispering enquiry’.

The room contained between 35,000 and 40,000 volumes, most of them in the Ussher, Palliser and Gilbert collections housed on the south side. Books on the north side were more sparse and many of the shelves were still empty. The busts on display in 1750 were the fourteen bought from the Gilbert bequest and the Roubiliac of Swift. Because of the fear of fire there was no heat or artificial light in the Long Room itself, though there were fire-places in the pavilion rooms which, apart from the Librarian's Room, were still used for academic purposes. The fireplaces were obviously used, as the accounts record regular payments for coal.