The Royal Engineers Library is open to members of the public by appointment only. The Library is located inside the huge Brompton Barracks complex adjacent to the Royal Engineers Museum at Chatham.

The Library holds most of the standard English books of the Napoleonic period, particularly the Peninsular War. Southey, Jones, Napier, Oman, Wellington's Dispatches and Supplementary Dispatches are all to be found, as well as the expected memoirs - Smith, Gomm, Simmonds, Bell, Grattan, Kincaid, etc.

There are a few French works Belmas' Journaux des Sieges and Thiebault's Relation de l'Expedition du Portugal being the principal ones, but nothing exceptional. However, the Library does hold a number of unpublished diaries and letters of Engineers who served in the Peninsula. These include the Diaries of Major J.T. Jones when he was Brigade Major, a packet of letters from Captain George Ross RE to Sir Hew Dalrymple; J. Burgoyne's Diaries; and the Commanding Engineer's Letter Books of Lt. Col. Richard Fletcher.

Anyone who has read any manuscripts or diaries of this period of history will know that the handwriting is often very difficult to interpret. Fortunately an earlier Librarian, a Major J.T. Hancock, compiled a Digest of References of Military Engineering in the Peninsular War. The Digest lists almost every event in the war which involved the Engineers (the sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and San Sebastian, and the Lines of Torres Vedras are the subjects for which there is the most information) and against each are references to both published and unpublished works.

Included as part of the Digest is most of the unpublished material, all painstakingly typed out by Major Hancock. This Digest, which must have taken years to compile, is worthy of publication.

The Library has a photocopying service for which a charge of 20p plus VAT is made for each A4 copy. There is also a Books for Sale section amongst which are old copies of the Royal Engineers Journal dating back to the 1930s. The Library is open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only, 9.00am to 5.00pm, closing for lunch 12.30 to 1.30pm. There is no admission charge. Contact Captain R. T. Arnold on 01634 822416.