Haggerston Branch Library

Haggerston Branch Library is a library that was originally built as a house around 1880. It was adapted for library use in 1893 by Richard J Lovell, and the facade was built and extended by two bays in 1896 by Maurice B Adams. The building is constructed of brick with a facade made of Portland stone and features gabled Welsh slate roofs along with stone and brick stacks. It has a double-depth plan and is designed in the Italianate style, consisting of two storeys and a basement, arranged in a symmetrical five-bay range.

Stone steps lead up to a fielded six-panelled door, and the projecting porch is supported by Corinthian pilasters and columns, with a tablet set in a broken pediment. The basement and ground floor exhibit channelled rustication, with a band of Greek key ornament interrupted by moulded window architraves on the ground floor. These architraves are adorned with enriched ornament, bracketed cills, and ornamental cast-iron guards. The plain friezes below the cornices, which are brought forward from the moulded storey bond, are inscribed with "SHOREDITCH/LIBRARY/HAGGERSTON/BRANCH." The first-floor window architraves feature alternate segmental and triangular pediments with console brackets, bead and reel ornament, and rosettes carved on the cills. The building is topped with a Corinthian frieze and cornice, which supports a balustraded parapet with vase finials, and it is terminated by rusticated ashlar stacks with bracketed cornices. There are also glazed roof lights in the staircase and reading room at the rear.

Inside, the library has a panelled entrance hall with a half-glazed door leading to the stair hall, which features a rib-vaulted stair-light with foliate brackets and a panelled frieze. The ground floor room to the right has a plaster cornice with console brackets. The first-floor rooms at the front are decorated with enriched plaster cornices and a panelled door set in a pedimented doorcase, along with painted decoration featuring arabesques in the former reference library. This library was the second to be established through donations from John Passmore Edwards.