Former Chadderton Central Library

Former Chadderton Central Library

A former civic library in the Jacobean Revival style, designed by J Lindsay Grant of Manchester for Chadderton Urban District Council with funding from Andrew Carnegie. Built in 1904-5.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of red Accrington brick, predominantly laid in English bond, with sandstone dressings. Windows are leaded with rectangular quarrels. The roofs are slate with terracotta ridges, and rainwater goods are cast iron with ornamented hoppers.

Plan and Layout

The building is double ranged with gable ends facing Victoria Street to the east and Middleton Road to the south. The entrance is positioned in a stair hall adjacent to the street corner on Middleton Road. The principal reading room occupies the entire ground floor of the northern range. A stair provides access to two further reading rooms on the first floor, positioned adjacent to the street frontages, with the rear being single storey.

Middleton Road Frontage

The main entrance sits at the base of a three-storey tower. To the left are three two-storied gabled bays, and to the right is a lower three-storied bay set back from the line of the building. The entrance features a pedimented and richly decorated sandstone doorcase incorporating a cartouche inscribed "Public Library" and surmounted by a sculpture of a reading child. The entrance retains outer gates of ornate ironwork. Windows above have sandstone architraves and mullions with leaded lights. The windows to the bays to the west are similarly styled but larger, with cross mullions, and the first floor centre window forms a large oriel. The parapet and gables are raised and coped. On the ridge of the main roof behind the centre gable stands a leaded platform that formerly supported an ornamented ventilation turret. The bay to the right of the tower has no parapet but features a dentilated eaves band instead.

Victoria Street Frontage

Both gable ends are raised and coped. The right gable, to the north, is slightly higher and surmounted by a vase finial, whilst the left gable has a shoulder supporting a pinnacle. The right bay features a large two-storey canted bay with cross-mullioned windows, quoining and a coped parapet. Above is a blind lancet to the attic, architraved and pedimented. The left bay contains a very large 16-light cross-mullioned stair window, with a three-light mullioned window to the attic above and two single-light basement stair windows below. At the corner to Middleton Road, the angle is canted and surmounted by a cartouche reading "This public library was presented by Andrew Carnegie Esq. 1905". Below this is a hanging sign on an Art Nouveau iron bracket and two further architraved windows. Set slightly back within the valley between the two gables is a partly truncated diamond-set chimney.

West End Elevation

The two-storey front range has large six-light cross-mullioned and architraved windows to the centre, flanked by simpler two-light transomed windows with chamfered reveals. One of these small windows has been converted into a door. The single-storey rear range has similar simple windows with chamfered reveals.

North Side Elevation

Cross-mullioned windows with chamfered reveals and leaded lights.

Interior

A large stair hall features Ionic columns and an open well staircase, with both the balustrading and columns constructed in oak. The ground floor of the hall is geometrically tiled in a monochrome design. Inner entrance doors and other internal doors are partly glazed and set in eared architraves. The large first floor room facing south has a vaulted ceiling. Other ceilings are more simply treated but generally feature cornices.