Walsall Central Library

Walsall Central Library

A central borough library opened in 1906, designed by James GS Gibson and William Wallace with carvings by HC Fehr. The building is constructed of red Flemish-bond brick with ashlar dressings and a plain-tiled roof.

The ground floor originally contained a central entrance hall with a reading room to the north and a lending library to the south. A projecting square staircase bay at the rear led to the first floor, where a large vaulted space was divided by wooden screens with glazed upper panels to create three separate rooms: a Ladies' Reading Room, a Magazine Room and a Reference Library.

The front elevation to Lichfield Street comprises nine symmetrically disposed bays with banded quoins to the corners and an entablature across the front. The central projecting bay features a full-height sandstone frontispiece with banded rustication. It contains a large central niche enclosing a portal at ground floor level, flanked by Ionic columns supporting sections of entablature. Above this is an open pediment with relief carving of two adorsed figures either side of a cartouche bearing the inscription 'FREE / LIBRARY' and the date '1905' below. The first floor has a large arched window with an aedicular surround at its centre, flanked by blank panels and a bracket keystone connecting to a segmental pediment above. Either side are four bays each; ground floor windows have round-arched ashlar surrounds with keystones descending to ground level to create a colonnade effect, with recessed windows featuring stone cills. First floor windows have moulded shouldered surrounds.

The south flank has a two-light window at ground floor level and an arched window at first floor with a wooden aedicular surround to its centre, with a lower wing to the left housing a staircase. The original north-eastern flank was remodelled when an early 21st-century entrance lobby with glass walling was attached to the building. This lobby connects to a 1960s extension housing the museum and children's library, finished with Travertine limestone cladding to its street fronts.

The rear elevation has plain brick walling and a projecting staircase bay to the centre with Serlian windows to its flanks at first floor level.

The former reading room has a round-arched colonnade to its western side and skylights to the ceiling at the rear with panelled surrounds. The central projecting bay on the west side, which formerly contained the staircase, now has a floor inserted. At first floor level, this bay has Serlian windows to each flank wall with stained glass panels. The first floor room features an uninterrupted vault with a shallow dome to its centre flanked by segmental vaulting, divided into panels with richly-moulded plaster surrounds showing fruit and foliage.

The Library and Museum extension joined to the north-east of the building and the Walsall Gala Baths joined to the rear north-western side are not of special architectural or historic interest.