Public Library, Lytham Institute And Hewitt Lecture Room

LYTHAM ST ANNES

SD3627SE CLIFTON STREET, Lytham 621-1/6/45 (North side) No.27 Public Library, Lytham Institute and Hewitt Lecture Room

GV II

Institute with billiard room and lecture room, now also occupied by public library. Dated 1878 on parapet over centre. Red brick in Flemish bond with sandstone and polychrome brick dressings, steeply-pitched slate roofs. U-shaped plan on end-of-block site, with Institute fronting Clifton Street, billiard room and lecture room range fronting Bannister Street and short returned end to that range. Gothic style. The front range is 2 storeys and 3 bays, the outer bays gabled, with a weathered band in the place of a plinth, a polychrome band at 1st floor, quoin-patterned corners of white brick, and coped gables with kneelers and ornamental cast-iron finials. The centre has a porch with a moulded Tudor-arched outer doorway and hoodmould, 2-centred arched windows in the sides, and internal steps up to double doors with ornamental strap hinges; a round-headed 4-pane sashed window at 1st floor; and a stepped stone parapet with raised lettering "AD / 1878 / LYTHAM / INSTITUTE". To the left at ground floor is a rectangular bay window with coupled triangular-headed 4-pane sashes, to the right a canted bay window, and above each of these a 2-centred arched 4-pane sashed window with polychrome surround and hoodmould with figured stops. Two-window left gable wall similar to front, including a similar rectangular bay window. Continued to the rear is the billiard room and lecture room range, of one storey and 5 bays, with projecting gables to the 2nd and 4th. Both these have gable copings with kneelers and ornamental cast-iron finials; that to the left has a shallow gabled porch with a 2-centred arched doorway over which hangs a glazed lantern with a stained glass pane lettered "HEWITT / LECTURE / ROOM"; that to the right has two 2-centred arched windows; and the other bays have 1, 2 and 2 round-headed 4-pane sashed windows respectively. North return wall has (inter alia) 3 round-headed windows. Forms group with Police Station to north (q.v.) and with United Reformed Church opposite this (q.v.).

Listing NGR: SD3685127223