Central Public Library

The Central Public Library, located on Middlesbrough’s Victoria Square, was built between 1909 and 1912 by S.B. Russell and T.E. Cooper of London, with funding partly from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation. A rear extension was added in 1977. The building is constructed of red brick with a sandstone ashlar plinth, parapet, towers, and dressings, and has a renewed slate roof. It is designed in a Baroque style and comprises one storey with two-storey end bays and an attic storey, extending over eleven bays. The 2nd and 10th bays are wider and slightly project. The 10th bay features wrought iron double gates with wreaths and medallions, set under an overlight with lozenge-pattern glazing bars within an architrave. A continuous entablature displays applied metal lettering reading "PUBLIC LIBRARY" in the frieze, above a 24-pane casement window in an enriched architrave, with similar windows in the 2nd bay. Paired giant Roman Ionic pilasters rise from a deep continuous plinth, framing the doorways and windows and supporting the entablature. Short towers flank the 2nd and 10th bays, each featuring a window with patterned glazing bars within a broken-pedimented architrave, incorporating an urn and swag in the tympanum. The middle bays have 24-pane hopper-light windows within architraves, set behind a colonnade-in-antis. A balustraded parapet tops the building, with straight parapets on the towers. The right end bay has a similar window, while the narrow left end bay has a round-headed doorway with a matching gate. Both end bays feature oculi in the architraves on the first floor. A mansard roof extends over the middle and right end bays, incorporating flat-roofed dormers. A six-bay return is located on the right side of the building, with a two-storey rear extension that is sympathetic to the original design.

The entrance hall features marble wall cladding and panelled double doors with glazed round top panels, topped with fanlights within architraves that have enriched escutcheons, flanked by pilasters. An impost entablature features triglyphs and guttae, leading to a ceiling with a roundel bordered with raised fruit and flowers. An imperial marble staircase has an iron post-and-rail balustrade with medallions, a moulded wood handrail, and marble pedestal newels. Plaster-panelled walls define the staircase and landings. Similar doors, on the first floor, are set in panelled surrounds, topped with broken pediments on fluted consoles, with enriched escutcheons in the tympana. Bronze commemorative tablets are affixed to the staircase landing. The first-floor reference library has a segmental-arched ceiling with square-panelled ribs between dormers, above a heavily-moulded top entablature with a pulvinated frieze. Oak panelled walls further enhance the space. A gallery, projecting at angles to form five bays, is supported by Roman Doric columns with a continuous entablature, and has iron post-and-rail fronts. A similar galleried reading room adjoins the reference library.