North Shields Mechanics Institute and Free Library

North Shields Mechanics Institute and Free Library

This is a square, three-storey building of mellow red brick enriched with stucco dressings, occupying a prominent corner site with elevations on Saville Street and Howard Street. It comprises a large room to the ground floor with a stair to the left providing access to a first-floor library with gallery, and smaller rooms arranged at all levels.

The Howard Street elevation has three storeys and five bays. A plinth runs along the base, with an entablature band between ground and first floors and a pedimented entablature at the top. The central bay projects slightly and features rusticated pilasters to the ground floor, flanking an entrance with double wooden doors and an overlight with circular fenestration. The entrance is framed by an elaborate doorcase with a cornice carried upon scrolled console brackets incorporating a pair of lion heads and scrolled decoration. Immediately above the doorcase is a frieze incised with the words "Free Library". Giant pilasters rise through the first and second floors above the rusticated pilasters, flanking a large first-floor three-light window with a bracketed cornice matching the entrance treatment. At the second floor sits a heavily moulded lunette window with a giant key in the form of a bearded head. The pedimented entablature has a decorative laurel wreath in its tympanum.

The end bays feature paired windows at all levels, each containing two over two horned sash windows with heavily moulded and eared architraves. Ground-floor windows are square-headed with scroll-decorated frieze and cornice above, surmounted by an entablature enriched with scroll decoration. First-floor windows are round-headed with decorated keys and friezes with floral boss decoration. Second-floor windows are smaller, square-headed, with a sill band and scrolled heads that merge with the entablature above.

The Saville Street elevation is very similarly detailed with identical windows, ornamentation, entablature, door and doorcase, but lacks the highly ornamented projecting central bay. Instead, it has a round-headed window at first-floor level and a smaller square-headed window at the second floor.

Internally, the Saville Street entrance leads into a large ground-floor room occupying two bays to the right of the door. The modern ceiling is supported on three rows of square columns believed to have been inserted to provide additional strength to the floor above. A large opening through the west wall is recent and leads to an extension into an adjoining building. Fixtures and fittings in this room are thought to relate to 1990s refurbishment, with the possible exception of the projecting entrance leading to the stair. The remainder of the ground floor contains a number of smaller rooms which retain original cornices and chimneybreasts. The present stair is modern, added in 1990 to replace the original spiral stair that formerly provided access to the first-floor library.

The library is double-height and lit from above through a large light well lined with wooden panels with applied circular motifs; the ridge light above remains visible. The ceiling has an elaborate cornice incorporating scrolled motifs, and a gallery runs around all four sides. This gallery features an original cast-iron balustrade with scroll decoration, now raised by the addition of a wooden handrail, and a lower band of applied bosses. A double-height chimneybreast remains on the west wall, though any fireplaces have been removed. A separate room to the south, now accessed through inserted doors, has original cornicing and wainscoting. Rooms on the second floor have panelled reveals to the windows, skirting boards and cornices.