Edward Pease Public Library And Darlington Art Gallery

The Edward Pease Public Library and Darlington Art Gallery is an exuberant civic building, inscribed with "Edward Pease Free Library 1884." It features one storey and an attic, with six bays on East Street and a canted angle, as well as 21 bays on the Crown Street front, where the sixth bay from the right serves as the entrance. The building is constructed of strong red brick with abundant terra-cotta dressings. It has a high-pitched roof made of graduated Lakeland slates, adorned with large decorative ridge stacks. The attic windows, set in gables, exhibit an elaborate Dutch renaissance style, with some featuring straight and others serpentine open pediments. All windows are treated in a baroque style, with scrolled side pieces and moulded projecting key blocks that extend through segmental pediments decorated with fan motifs. Below the windows are brickwork panels. Access to the corner doorway is via five splayed steps, which have cast iron lame holders on the side walls, and the doorway is topped with a pediment that displays coats of arms among scrolls. A few wrought iron area railings remain. Atop the ridge above the side entrance is a wooden cupola with an ogee lead dome. A plaque on the west wall notes a stone with an iron hitching ring below, which was used by W.T. Stead, the noted campaigning journalist, to tie his horse when he was the editor of the "Northern Echo."