Carnegie Library

Public Library. Built in 1911, with later 20th-century alterations. Designed by Bradshaw and Gass, architects, of Bolton, for the Farnworth Urban District Council. The building is constructed of red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings and flat-roofed sections around a central dome.

The building has a rectangular plan with projections to the front and rear, and a tall central dome to light the interior.

The north front has a single-storied design with a tall, prominent main entrance centrally positioned, featuring a double doorway below a rectangular overlight and an enriched frieze. The doorcase has flanking columns supporting a large open segmental pediment. The capitals of the columns feature carved relief portraits of the library’s benefactors. The pediment sits against a deep parapet rising from a moulded cornice. Above the centre of the parapet is a stone panel inscribed 'CARNEGIE LIBRARY'. Low, canted wings flank the entrance, featuring ashlar-framed single-light windows rising from a cill band, set against the front wall of flanking ranges. These ranges have tripartite windows set beneath a central segmental upstand within the parapet, which incorporates an oculus. The return elevation to the right has five two-light mullioned windows. The rear elevation has advanced bays in the centre.

The interior features an entrance lobby with 20th-century alterations, but with retained wall panelling and half-glazed doors. The central concourse has pilasters and columns supporting an octagonal base to the dome, with console bracket decoration to the base beam soffits. The octagonal base, with rectangular panels, supports the dome ribs with triple-light glazing between them. The library interior is now largely open plan, with surviving upper sections of internal screen walls with glazing bars and semi-circular lights flanking the main concourse.

The library is part of a group of public buildings all designed by Bradshaw and Gass, intended to form the civic focus of the newly-created Urban District Council of Farnworth, alongside the Town Hall and the Baptist Church.