Stalybridge Public Library

Stalybridge Public Library, built between 1897 and 1901, was designed by James Medland Taylor, a regional architect known for his ecclesiastical work and involvement with architectural societies in Manchester. The library was funded by John Frederick Cheetham, a local mill owner and Member of Parliament, who oversaw the project and ensured its design avoided common pitfalls observed in London libraries. Trinity Street was widened to accommodate the building, and Cheetham's wife laid the foundation stone. The building now commemorates Cheetham with a blue plaque, recognising his generosity and public service. His art collection, The Astley Cheetham Collection, is displayed within.

The library is a two-story building with six bays, executed in a Jacobean Revival style. It features dressed stone on the ground floor, brick on the first floor, and a clay tile roof. Architectural details include a projecting plinth, continuous sill bands, a first-floor cornice, eaves cornice, irregular quoins, and coped gables with ball finials. The first bay is a projecting gabled wing, the third a single-story porch, and the fifth a projecting chimneystack with canted sides. The porch has cast-iron gates within a round-headed arch supported by bulbous Ionic columns and topped by an entablature inscribed "Astley Cheetham Public Library." Windows are mullioned and transomed, with three first-floor windows breaking through the eaves and featuring shaped gables. A bow window is present on the right return.

Inside, a central atrium provides access to surrounding rooms via elliptical keystone arches on rusticated columns. One room is a hall-like space with hammer-beam roof trusses. The ceilings are molded plaster, and there are timber screens. Decorative ironwork around the entrance doorway reads ‘Read, Mark, Learn And Inwardly Digest’.