Royal Art Gallery, Museum And Library

The Royal Art Gallery, Museum and Library is a building of 1852-7, with later additions from 1878 and 1936-8, designed by Travis & Mangnall. It is constructed from brick with stone dressings and a Welsh slate roof, and it is built in an Italian Renaissance style, featuring outer pedimented wings linked by a central range of four bays with a blind upper storey.

The entrances are recessed up steps, each within an arcaded portico featuring slim Corinthian columns and a balustraded parapet to a balcony. The inner doors have side lights beneath a pediment. An inscription above the doorway on the left-hand side reads 'Langworthy Gallery Erected AD 1878'. A central window is set within a stone architrave, flanked by blind panels. A heavy modillion cornice runs across the building, above which a pediment rises in each wing, incorporating arcaded decoration and terracotta panelling in the apex. The central range features four segmentally-arched recesses with vermiculated stone keyblocks to brick arches, housing paired round-headed four-pane sashes separated by central stone pilasters, and with a stone medallion in the spandrel. Single four-pane sash windows are set within stone architraves on each side, each with a stone lunette above. A moulded stone string course runs above the first-floor windows, continuing across the entrance wings.

Inside the renewed stairway in the left-hand entrance provides access to top-lit upper galleries, the central gallery having a coved plaster ceiling. The building occupies the site of a former mansion, Lark Hill, which had previously been converted for use as a gallery. The original main block of the mansion was demolished in 1936-8, and replaced with a symmetrical extension built in a similar style.