FLOOD water entered the Marx Memorial Library in central London following exceptionally heavy rainfall yesterday afternoon.

The library, which is housed in an 18th-century building in Clerkenwell, suffered water ingress to its basement and east wing.

A spokesperson from the library said: “The emergency services, our staff, volunteers and Islington Heritage (their staff and volunteers) responded immediately with a salvage operation and thus far there has been no major damage to the collections.

“We are currently working on drying affected materials and stabilising conditions in the building.”

The library will be closed to the public while repair work, including to parts of the roof, takes place.

Dehumidifiers and fans were immediately put in place to prevent further damage to collections.

A London Fire Brigade spokeswoman told the Morning Star that three fire engines attended the scene at 4.24pm yesterday, where they found flooding up to a depth of six inches.

“We pumped out water and historical artefacts were relocated to a safe location by our crews,” she said.

The incident will be of interest to readers of this paper because the library’s archives contain a full run of the Morning Star and its predecessor the Daily Worker, which was founded in 1930.

During the cold war, the newspaper was also diligently archived by the security service MI5.

Former MI5 head Stella Rimington has claimed that the agency had a bulk order, in order to keep track of British communists.

Many clippings from the paper are now emerging in MI5 personal files that are gradually being declassified at the National Archives in Kew.

Readers can donate to the Marx Memorial Library via this link www.marx-memorial-library.org.uk/support.