Chorlton Library

Chorlton Library

A library completed in 1914 to designs by Henry Price, constructed in red brick with Portland stone dressings. The building is single-storey with a flat roof and displays the Edwardian Baroque style.

The library occupies a triangular plot and employs a fan-shaped plan with two principal elevations. The narrower north elevation faces the junction of Longford Road and Manchester Road and contains the main entrance. The principal east elevation faces Manchester Road.

On the two main elevations the flat roof is concealed behind a partly-balustraded Portland stone parapet set above an entablature with a dentil cornice. Plain brick parapets hide the roof on the rear and north-west sides. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods survive, including a hopper decorated with a small cherubic face (putto) on the east elevation.

The north elevation, which has coved outer edges and is faced entirely with Portland stone featuring banded rustication, comprises three bays. The main entrance at its centre consists of a semi-circular, distyle-in-antis Ionic portico with original cast-lead letters reading 'PVBLIC LIBRARY'. The original entrance doors have been replaced with modern automatic doors, but the eared and shouldered surround with triple keystone remains intact, along with the carved-timber inner-surround featuring a Greek-key frieze above the door and a decorative overlight. Flanking the portico are slender windows with original decorative painted wrought-iron grilles and triple keystones. Rising above and behind the front elevation is a large octagonal dome, constructed of red brick to the lower part (visible only from the building's flat roof and incorporating two multipaned wrought-iron windows) and Portland stone to the upper part with a lead-covered roof and glazing to a small lantern visible internally. Lion head gargoyles ornament the coving at the dome's eaves line.

The east elevation comprises five bays facing Manchester Road, lit by a series of four multipaned sash windows with margin lights and some cross-patterned leaded glazing. Each window has an eared and shouldered Portland stone architrave with a triple keystone. The outer bays are flanked by panelled Portland stone pilaster strips rising through the parapet and incorporating lotus bud decoration with further rusticated stonework to the side. A recessed canted bay window to the far right, lighting the librarian's office, is flanked by Ionic columns and contains similarly styled sashes. A flat-roofed single-storey extension of approximately 1964 is attached to the south-east side and is excluded from the listing.

The south-west elevation comprises three angled walls as a result of the fan-shaped plan. This plain brick elevation, facing a rear yard, is largely plain and buttressed, with fixed-pane and multipaned sash windows in the same style as the east elevation but with plain sandstone sills and flat-arched pressed-brick heads, a treatment also applied to an adjacent doorway. To the western end is a lower lean-to (originally the staff room) with a short brick stack at the western corner and two blocked-up window openings. The upper parts of two basement windows are visible, though the right-hand one has been bricked up. The north-west elevation is similarly plain and largely obscured by a neighbouring building.

The interior retains some original doors and cast-iron radiators, along with plain moulded cornicing and dentil cornicing to the principal rooms. The original flooring is believed to survive beneath later coverings.

The library originally contained three large rooms: a lending library flanked by a reading room and a children's library, accessed via an entrance vestibule and entrance hall. The entrance vestibule has a decorated ceiling and contains a classical doorcase with modern automatic doors installed in front. Two new doorways have been inserted into the north-west wall to access a modernised toilet and store room. The entrance hall was originally octagonal but has since been altered, with angled walls on the eastern and western sides brought forward to create straight walls. The original classical architraves and glazed doors with patterned glazing bars have been retained, though repositioned, and the original wall alignment is visible behind later partitioning. The librarian's office, located off the eastern side of the hall and still used for its original purpose, has been extended to incorporate a former washroom. The former porter's room opposite has been converted to toilets.

The dome rises over the entrance hall and originally incorporated a wrought-iron galleried balcony. In 1983/4 a false floor was inserted to create a staff room above, and the balcony front was removed. The staff room is decorated with pilasters matching those elsewhere in the building and is accessed by the original dog-leg balcony stair, located off the western side of the entrance hall, which features a curtail step, stick balusters, wreathed handrail, replaced tread coverings, and a dado of cream and green glazed tiles. The dome survives above a suspended ceiling, retaining its original plaster panelling, medallion decoration and dentil cornice. The dome lantern's stained glass has been replaced by plain glazing.

The three principal rooms are separated by dividing piers and wall pilasters with panelled plaster decoration matching the former dome balcony and the exterior pilaster strips. All three rooms have dados, now painted over, which are most likely cream and green glazed tiles as in the balcony stair, and each has a small internal square window in its northern wall, originally providing additional light via the top-lit dome. Where the central room fans outward, slender cast-iron columns with decorative console-type scrolled capitals support the roof. The original staff room, located to the rear of the former children's library, has been incorporated into the western room through the removal of two openings in the dividing wall. Openings have also been knocked through in the library's rear south-eastern wall to connect into the 1960s extension. An original stair at the south corner of the central room descends to the basement, which contains boilers and a small workshop or caretaker's room with a partly-glazed internal timber wall and a large Belfast sink.