Ruskin Rooms

The Ruskin Rooms, built around 1900, originally served as reading rooms and a fire station and are now used as offices. Designed by Fairhurst and completed by Walter Aston for Richard Harding Watt, the building features a rendered exterior with stone dressings and randomly projecting blocks, topped with a red pantiled roof.

The structure is three stories tall and includes a corner tower that projects at an angle, housing the entrance to the upper floors. The former fire station is located on the west elevation and has an irregular three-window arrangement. The entrance, which is now glazed in, features a wide segmental arch and is situated at the angle of the tower, with paired tall windows to the right. Above, there are tall single and two-light windows, all with flat stone lintels. An inscribed stone is located over the entrance.

The upper storey is accentuated with a continuous sill band and cornice, featuring three-light mullioned windows—paired to the right and a single window to the left—all with segmentally-arched heads. The lower sections of the windows have mullions and transoms that create a continuous balustrading pattern. Stacks on the right side break the roofline between the windows.

The angled tower has an oriel window above the long windows of one and two lights, with paired round-arched lights above. There is also a subsidiary octagonal tower at the angle with round-arched windows on each face, topped with a green scallop-tiled dome. Stone steps against the north return of the tower lead to a stair doorway made of rusticated stone, which is sheltered by a projecting pantile-roofed porch.

The angled return wall has irregular fenestration, while the main range's return wall features an oriel window on the second floor and casements with margin lights on the ground and first floors, flanked by narrow windows. A stack is located on the rear wall. Heavy wooden brackets support an ornate wrought-iron frame for the 'Ruskin Rooms' sign that projects from the tower, and the stone beside the entrance steps is inscribed 'The Ruskin Recreation Rooms'. This building is part of a notable development in Free Style architecture, commissioned by Richard Harding Watt.