Library And Art Gallery

The Library and Art Gallery in Oldham was built in 1883, with additions made in 1894. It features rusticated rubble, coursed and squared in small blocks, topped with a red plain tiled roof that has ridge cresting. The building is two stories high and symmetrically planned, with a central entrance gable and flanking blocks, each containing three bays.

There are steps leading up to a Romanesque style entrance, which has squat shafts supporting a round arch and a low relief in the tympanum. A shallow oriel window has leaded trefoiled lights, the city arms, and an inscription in the frieze above. The gable coping is topped with a statue. The gable returns connect to the flanking blocks through full-height segmental bays, each featuring two-light windows on both floors.

The flanking blocks each have three windows, with tall segmentally-arched mullioned and transomed ground floor windows that include stained glass in the lower panes. The upper windows are trefoiled mullioned and transomed lights, and the central window extends into a gabled dormer that has a rose window. The gable of the dormer is supported by stumpy shafts. The end walls have stacks, and the gable returns each feature a central stack that is corbelled out over the first floor, with rose windows on either side.

Behind the main entrance block, there are two parallel rear wings that house the main galleries. The high ground floor is divided by buttresses into six bays, each with segmentally-arched windows, and features high relief busts of artists and literary figures beneath a timber clerestory that has overhanging eaves supported by paired timber shafts. A lower three-bay block extends beyond this, with an eastern entrance in a gabled porch that is inscribed "Lecture Hall" above the doorway. The entrance steps are flanked by cast-iron railings with a stone plinth wall and terminal piers that carry cast-iron globe lamps.