Library And Art Gallery

OLDHAM

SD9204NE UNION STREET 780-1/6/82 (South side) Library and Art Gallery

GV II

Library and Art Gallery. 1883 with additions of 1894. Rusticated rubble, coursed and squared in small blocks. Red plain tiled roof with ridge cresting. High 2 storeys, symmetrically planned with central entrance gable and flanking blocks, each of 3 bays. Steps up to Romanesque style entrance with squat shafts carrying round arch, and low relief in tympanum. Shallow oriel with leaded trefoiled lights, city arms and inscription in frieze above. Gable coping surmounted by statue. Gable returns are linked to flanking blocks by full-height segmental bays in the angles with 2-light windows on each floor. Flanking blocks each of 3 windows, with tall segmentally-arched mullioned and transomed ground floor windows with stained glass in lower panes. Upper windows are trefoiled mullioned and transomed lights, and the central window cuts into gabled dormer with rose window. The gable of the dormer is carried on stumpy shafts. End wall stacks. Gable returns each have central stack corbelled out over first floor with rose windows to each side of it. Behind this frontage entrance block, 2 parallel rear wings comprise main galleries. High ground floor divided by buttresses into 6 bays each with segmentally-arched window, then high relief busts of artists and literary figures beneath timber clerestory which has overhanging eaves carried on paired timber shafts. Lower 3-bay block beyond has eastern entrance in gabled porch, inscribed "Lecture Hall" over doorway. Cast-iron railings with stone plinth wall and terminal piers flanking entrance steps carrying cast-iron globe lamps.

Listing NGR: SD9287104889