Royal Art Gallery, Museum And Library

SALFORD

SJ8298NW THE CRESCENT 949-1/18/103 (North side) 18/01/80 Royal Art Gallery, Museum and Library (Formerly Listed as: WINDSOR CRESCENT (North side) Royal Art Gallery Museum and Library)

GV II

Museum, art gallery and library. 1852-7. By Travis & Mangnall. Later additions 1878 and 1936-8. Brick with stone dressings, Welsh slate roof. Italian Renaissance style, with outer pedimented wings linked by long range of 4 bays with blind upper storey. EXTERIOR: entrances up steps in each wing, each in arcaded portico with slim Corinthian columns and balustraded parapet to balcony. Inner doors with side lights beneath pediment. Inscription over left-hand doorway reads 'Langworthy Gallery Erected AD 1878'. Central window in stone architrave above, flanked by blind panels. Heavy modillion cornice running the length of the building, above which, in each wing, a pediment rises with arcaded decoration and terracotta panelling in the apex. Between the 2 entrance blocks, the central range comprises 4 segmentally-arched recesses with vermiculated stone keyblocks to brick arches, each containing paired round-headed 4-pane sashes, divided by a central stone pilaster, and with a stone medallion in the spandrel. Single 4-pane sash window in stone architrave each side with stone lunette over. Moulded stone string course over first floor windows, its line continuing across the gabled entrance wings. Renewed stairway inside left hand entrance, giving access to top-lit upper galleries, the central of which has coved plaster ceiling. HISTORICAL NOTE: the building is on the site of a mansion known as Lark Hill, which was converted for use as a gallery, with the addition of north and south wings 1852-7 by Travis & Mangnall. The main block of the mansion was demolished in 1936-8, leaving the wings, to which a new extension in similar style was built, giving the building its present symmetrical form. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: South Lancashire: Harmondsworth: 1969-: 391-2).

Listing NGR: SJ8206298752