Tyldesley Public Library

Tyldesley Public Library

A Carnegie library built in 1909, designed by Arthur John Hope of the practice Bradshaw Gass and Hope. The building is constructed of Ruabon brick with Runcorn red sandstone dressings, red clay tile roof, timber windows, partial steel framing, and concrete floors.

The building follows an L-shaped two-storey plan, with a single-storey lecture hall set in the angle and a three-storey administrative range behind. Designed in Jacobean Renaissance style, it occupies a corner site near the market square in the centre of Tyldesley Town Centre Conservation Area, facing east onto Stanley Street.

The front facade consists of two storeys plus an attic, three bays wide. It features an ashlar ground floor and rusticated plinth, with a prominent moulded and billeted cornice. The bays are defined by giant brick pilasters that continue in stone above the cornice against the brick parapet, which has a central attic flanked by consoles and a Diocletian window. Behind rises the tall hipped roof of the front range.

The first-floor windows have stone surrounds with aprons below. The ground-floor windows have deep-moulded arched heads with console keystones, and the upper halves contain radiating glazing bars from a central roundel. The central entrance is stepped and features Gibbsian blocked columns supporting a segmental open pediment above a lozenge-glazing-bar fanlight. Original iron gates enclose the porch, which contains a glazed timber screen and doors. At the left is a narrow splayed corner bay with a similar first-floor window and ground-floor window without arch.

The south facade contains a matching bay to the front, followed by five further bays of brick walling in Flemish Garden Wall bond with stone sill band. The ground-floor windows match those on the front but have brick arches and keystones. A cast-iron ogee eaves gutter is carried on wrought-iron stays. The left bay rises as a small tower, probably for a water tank.

The west rear wall is largely composed of the gabled rear of the main range, with a short bay to the left at the rear of the lecture hall. This facade is of common brick, mostly blind except for a large window in the gable with fair-faced arch and apron, and a fair-faced chimney stack above. The window is flanked by buff sandstone foundation stones from the former Mechanics' Institute building, inscribed "TEMPERANCE / & / EDUCATION / HALL" (now badly worn on the right edge) and "ERECTED / 1851" in cursive lettering. The bay to the left has three low floors of plain windows to offices and rear stair with stone sills.

The north wall is largely obscured by adjoining buildings.

Interior

The floor plan survives well, with a reading room to the left of the entrance, central lobby, and stairwell to the right, with barrel-vaulted halls to the rear of the stair and above the reading room.

The interior retains leaded and decoratively glazed windows and screens in the reading room (including Tyldesley's coat of arms), the office range, a skylight to the downstairs lecture hall, and the stairwell. The office space retains an issue hatch opening to the space beyond the reading room and a separate rear staircase.

The main stairwell contains a bronze plaque commemorating the donations of the site and building funds by benefactors, the opening by Charles Eckersley, members of the library committee of the local council, and the designers. The original terrazzo main stair survives with its balustrade, though the balustrade has been truncated on the landing by a later partition.

Decorative timber and plaster detailing survives to varying degrees throughout, though the plaster ceiling of the front first-floor room has fallen and some features are partially concealed by later finishes. The basement is largely devoid of features of interest.