Borough Engineering Services Department (Ii)

The former Public Library, built in 1885 by John Johnstone, is now the Borough Engineering Services Department. It is designed in an extravagant neo-baroque style and constructed from ashlar with a Welsh slate roof. The building has two storeys and an attic, featuring five bays. The central bay projects under a shaped, pedimented gable that includes round-arched attic windows. Flanking the central bay are broken serpentine pediments with round windows, urn finials, and carved swags. Urns are placed on the parapet at both ends and between the gables.

The building has heavy entablatures on both floors, supported by end pilasters and paired pilasters between the windows on the first floor. There are carved friezes, and the first-floor windows are flat arched, with the central tripartite window breaking the pediment of the entrance, which is supported by two heavy carved brackets. The ground floor features round-arched openings with archivolts, keystones adorned with masks, and impost strings, along with nook shafts at the door. The ground floor is rusticated with sunk apron panels.

This building is included partly for its group interest with the other municipal buildings on Swinburne Street-West Street.