A century after the founding of British intelligence-gathering agencies MI5 and MI6, ‘Under Covers: Documenting Spies’, a major new exhibition at the University Library, is offering visitors a first-hand look at the secretive world of espionage.

Through documents left behind by spies and the governments who sent them into action, the exhibition tells the story of espionage throughout history – from a twelfth-century manuscript describing how King Alfred the Great spied on Danish forces by entering their camp disguised as a harpist, to declassified MI6 documents from the First World War, to more recent documents from the Cold War era.

As well as items lent by private collectors, the exhibition makes use of documents which form a part of the UL’s own holdings: the Library is a prolific collector of the private papers of politicians, which can include previously classified documents related to foreign intelligence.

The documents on show are only a small selection of the Library’s espionage-related holdings: “it would be true to say that there is a lot of relevant material which we didn't have space in the Exhibition Centre to include,” says John Wells, of the Library’s Department of Manuscripts and University Archives.

Ominous Soviet military maps of the Cambridge area, the place names written in Cyrillic script, are an unsettling testament to the USSR’s readiness for action on British soil.

Also on display are pamphlets which were distributed to German soldiers during the Second World War, describing the terrain of Great Britain, as well as artefacts relating to the Cambridge Five, the infamous KGB spy ring whose members included Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt.

The exhibition succeeds in conveying a sense of the adventure and danger associated with espionage. Mr Wells’s own favourite exhibit reflects this: a decoded telegram sent on the 12th of June, 1918. “It concerns a couple of Russian revolutionaries making their way to Italy across Germany in the First World War, and being followed by two Czechs 'who will try to kill them'. [I like it] because of the immediacy of the cloak-and-dagger world it summons up, and the mystery that still surrounds it -- did they make it into Italy or did the Czechs catch up with them?”

The ‘Under Covers: Documenting Spies’ exhibition runs until the 3rd of July. The exhibition is open from 09.00 – 18.00 from Monday to Friday, and from 09.00 – 16.30 on Saturdays. Admission is free.