Former Wakefield Carnegie Library

Former Wakefield Carnegie Library, built in 1905 by Alfred Cox with funding from Andrew Carnegie. The building was extended to the rear in 1935 and to the eastern side in 1939. In 2015 it was converted and extended as exhibition space and studios, forming part of The Art House which is attached to the eastern side of the 1939 extension.

The northern and western elevations are constructed of Crosland Moor ashlar stonework with concealed guttering and decorative cast iron downpipes. The southern elevations of the 1905 building are roughcast rendered. The 1935 extension is built of thin red and brown bricks with stone bandings. The 1905 building has a steeply pitched roof covered with slate laid to diminishing courses. The extensions have flat roofs with skylights.

The 1905 building is broadly symmetrical in plan. The main entrance hall is accessed from Drury Lane on the northern side and provides access to flanking newspaper and magazine reading rooms that extend as wings to either side, as well as to the large central room which formed the lending library, extended southwards in 1935. The central room is flanked by cross wings containing two further reading rooms. The wings terminate to the rear with two-storey staff facilities with lower ground floors facing Mulberry Way. The western staff facility was originally a self-contained two-bedroom cottage. The 1939 extension, a further reading room extending along the eastern side, has its own entrance on Drury Lane.

The Drury Lane elevation comprises the 1905 building with a tall central entrance bay with a gabled attic storey and cupola, flanked by four-bay, single storey wings. The detailing is Neo-Baroque. The 1939 extension to the east is of three bays with a central entrance and simpler detailing. The whole elevation has a plinth and a moulded eaves cornice concealing guttering. Windows are small-paned and leaded.

The tall 1905 entrance bay is framed by rusticated engaged columns with panelled bases, supporting an entablature with an ornamented pulvinated frieze. The gable above is raised and coped and has a two-light mullioned attic window with a hood, architrave, and panelled apron. Rising from the centre of the roof is an ornate timber cupola with a leaded ogee cap and an iron weathervane. The double-doored entrance is set in a surround with engaged columns supporting an entablature with a very large cornice. Above is a deeply-set semi-circular fanlight in a rusticated surround with a bold ornamented cartouche rising above as a keystone.

The flanking wings each have a pair of large round-headed windows which project through the eaves, topped by raised coping that forms rounded hoods over each window. These windows have rusticated aprons incorporating raised panels and are set in concave-moulded surrounds with keystones featuring carved heads. Separating the windows is a downpipe with an ornate rainwater head inscribed '1905'. Either side of the paired windows are keyed oculus windows: circular windows with moulded surrounds featuring four keystones.

The 1939 addition to the east is symmetrical with a central, round-headed entrance with a keystoned architrave providing access to an internal porch. This entrance bay breaks forward slightly and has a shallow pediment. The flanking bays each have a single, narrow, square-headed window set in a keystoned architrave. Roofing is concealed by a parapet.

On the western side elevation, the falling ground surface down to Mulberry Way is accommodated by a retaining wall in engineering bricks topped by a stone balustrade containing a raised paved area. The building's elevation fronting onto this paving consists of a central range of three bays flanked by gable ends. The Neo-Baroque detailing is continued from the front, but simplified. The windows to the central section are square-headed with mullions and transoms and leaded lights. The eastern gable is coped and is framed by pilasters rising from the plinth. There is a single, large, round-headed window detailed like those to the front elevation. Set into the eastern pilaster is the building's foundation stone. The western gable is plainer, with three domestic-scaled square-headed windows each divided into two lights with a transom.

The Mulberry Way elevation has the 1935 extension to the centre. This is flat roofed and of two storeys, built of slim red and brown bricks. It has a Modernist horizontal emphasis with stone sill and lintel bands to each floor and a stone coped parapet. The window openings are moulded into these bands. The elevation is symmetrical with window openings divided into separate lights in the pattern three, two, four, two, three, the central four lights being omitted from the ground floor. The first-floor windows are leaded.

The elevations flanking the 1935 extension are matching and part of the original 1905 building but are domestic in appearance in 17th century vernacular revival style. The elevation to the west was actually formerly accommodation for a member of staff. These elevations are roughcast rendered, both being of two storeys and three bays with central, round-headed doorways, leaded twin-light casement windows and with tall, central, stone ashlar chimney stacks. The cottage to the west has an additional leaded light at lower ground floor level and a blue Wakefield Civic Society plaque to John Goodchild, archivist and historian (1935 to 2017). It is further enhanced by an elaboration to its chimney stack: a raised panel set below a segmental open-based pediment. The highly glazed extension on the Mulberry Way side of the 1939 extension was added about 2015.

The base of the tall entry bay on Drury Lane forms a domed entrance hall with a simple plaster cornice, central lantern and walls tiled up to dado level in a glazed green and blue floral pattern. A bronze plaque reads CITY OF WAKEFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY, THIS LIBRARY WAS BUILT BY MR ANDREW CARNEGIE AND PRESENTED BY HIM TO THE CORPORATION FOR THE USE OF THE INHABITANTS OF THIS CITY, MAY 1906. The internal porch has a black and white tiled floor and cast iron, Art Deco internal security gates. Three large rooms lead off this hall.

The flanking reading rooms (originally for newspapers and magazines) have shallow barrel-vaulted ceilings decorated with bands of roses and vines in low-relief plasterwork. Decorative plasterwork converges at the square column heads between each of the large windows. The walls have green glazed tiles to dado level and parquet flooring. As part of the 2015 conversion, freestanding 'pod' style workspaces forming artist's studios were added.

The central lending library space is accessed from the entrance hall via glazed double doors retaining Art Nouveau handles, the doors set between side lights and below a semi-circular fanlight. Inside the room is a second round-headed arch articulated by Doric columns. Two timber notice boards flank the entrance, and a plaster picture rail runs around the room above floral green and blue glazed tiles to dado rail. The room contains cast-iron radiators. Original 12-pane glazed double doors with fielded panels survive and most remain in use, although several have been blocked shut. The room is open to roof with skylights set in the curved plaster ceiling which also features exposed timber roof trusses. Two white plaster roses flank a fleur-de-lis shield on the west wall. A small number of original bookshelves survive around the edges of the room. Bookcases from the central space have been replaced with more freestanding 'pod' workspaces. This space is open to the 1935 extension which retains parquet flooring and book shelving as well as an Art Deco clock set above a book lift that links to the former lower-ground book store. This is a rare surviving feature once common to early 20th century libraries. The ceiling retains a large central skylight with diamond-paned armature and leaded lights.

The reading rooms flanking the central room retain decorative barrel-vaulted ceilings. The reading room to the east also retains blue-grey glazed tiles to dado level and is open to the 1939 extension on the eastern side, the interior of which has been altered. The former staff accommodation has also been altered but was more simply detailed. The lower ground floor still retains a number of historic doors.