Childrens Library

LANCASTER

SD4761NE NEW STREET 1685-1/7/214 (East side) Children's Library

GV II

Public library. 1932, incorporating part of the facade of the former Savings Bank, which dated from the 1820s. For the Borough of Lancaster. Sandstone ashlar, with a flat roof and skylight. Roughly square plan, linked at the right at the rear with the Public Library (qv) on Market Street. One-storey, 3-bay facade with a central dorway flanked by 2 pairs of fluted Greek Ionic columns, each placed in antis. The antae and doorway have a frieze decorated with a Greek key motif and date from 1932. The columns, which date from the 1820s, stand on a fluted plinth and carry a deep entablature with a dentil cornice, above which the projecting centre of the blocking course is decorated with scrollwork. The doorway is flanked by Doric pilasters carrying a pediment above a panel with the inscription in raised letters: 'PUBLIC LIBRARY JUNIORS', and the double doors have 3 raised and fielded panels each. The recesses behind the columns have tripartite windows whose mullions are panelled pilasters which carry an entablature with a dentil cornice. In front of the columns is a balustrade of ornamental iron work. Listed in part as the only significant surviving example in Lancaster of Greek Revival design. HISTORY: an elevation drawing in Lancaster Reference Library (PL 2/64) by Sharpe and Paley, dated 4-2-1848 shows a facade resembling the one which now survives, but without windows and with a central doorway. It is entitled 'Plans for the Alteration of the Savings Bank' and is probably a survey drawing rather than a new design, as the 5 feet to 1 mile OS map, surveyed in 1845, shows the Savings Bank with a similar recessed facade. The bank was established in 1823, and it is possible that the original design was by William Coulthart, a pupil of George Webster of Kendal, who was practising as an architect in Lancaster during the 1820s and who is known to have produced other work in the Greek Revival style. In 1932 the facade was rebuilt on the New Street Improvement Line, 12 feet back from its original position.

Listing NGR: SD4760261786