West Library And Attached Railings

West Library and Attached Railings

Branch public library on Bridgeman Road, Islington. Dated 1906 on the foundation stone and on a plaque over the first-floor windows of the corner range block; completed 1908. Designed by Arthur Beresford Pite for the Public Libraries Committee of Islington Borough Council, with builders C. Dearing and Sons.

The building is constructed of yellow brick set in Flemish bond with bands of purple brick, dressings of yellow gauged brick and Portland stone, and a slate roof. It rises one and two storeys over basement. The library is arranged in three loosely related parts: an entrance block of three-window range in Bridgeman Road; a gabled main block on the corner of Bridgeman Road and Thornhill Square; and a single-storey block to the right of the entrance in Bridgeman Road, also with three windows.

The entrance features a flat-arched porch with architrave decorated with spiral mouldings and a shallow bracketed canopy at entablature level enclosing a panel lettered 'PUBLIC LIBRARY' and flanked by geometrical interlaced ornament. Similar ornamental panels appear at the head of small buttresses either side of the entrance. The doorway has an overlight and panelled door of original design. Flat-arched windows flank the entrance, with three flat-arched windows to the first floor, each set under a round arch of gauged yellow brick. These windows have impost blocks and tympana of stone carved with letters of the alphabet on a ground of foliage. This decorative treatment is repeated across the building to complete the alphabet. The first-floor windows have original 6/6 sashes with bracketed pediments of a type inspired by the Baths of Caracalla.

The corner block at Bridgeman Road and Thornhill Square has a range of three windows to ground and first floors flanked by tall blank round arches under parapets. The windows are separated by engaged columns with unusual capitals, those to the first floor a simplified version of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. Here both the tympana and impost blocks on both floors are carved with letters of the alphabet. Over the first-floor windows are linked pediments of the Baths of Caracalla type, surmounted by a broad round arch of gauged yellow brick with thin piers like a Diocletian window but blank and filled with diaper work in purple brick. At the centre is a corniced Portland stone inscriptional panel. Above all is a shallow quasi-pedimented gable with simplified acroterion and antefixae in Portland stone. The return to Thornhill Square comprises four bays with flat-arched windows to ground and first floor set back slightly from the principal wall face, each with its letter of the alphabet beneath similar pediments. A parapet runs along this elevation, with a lantern along the ridge of the roof and an octagonal lantern set over it, the lower part glazed and the upper open with a lead roof and finial.

The single-storey range in Bridgeman Road has blank round arches under gauged brick heads either side of three windows separated by engaged columns with no capitals running up into impost blocks. Window heads bear letters of the alphabet, and the range is topped by a hipped roof.

The cast- and wrought-iron railings are designed by the architect and appear either side of the porch and to the area in Thornhill Square, with overthrow, brackets to the main wall and standards with Greek Revival details.

The interior preserves the original plan, which reflects the progressive librarianship of James Duff Brown, though uses have changed somewhat. Steps lead up to a central staircase hall flanked by a balustrade with fasces to the panels and newel post with urn finial. The hall has panelled dado and original architraves and doors to the Children's Library and Children's Lending Library, an unusual facility for 1908. The entrance to the main Lending Library has been slightly altered. A geometrical stair is set in an apse with square newel decorated with neo-Classical ornament and urn finial, and panelled balustrade decorated with fasces. The frieze has paterae and Greek key ornament to panelled plasterwork of the ceiling. The first-floor landing retains original architraves and panelled ceiling, but the various rooms, including the first-floor reading room with its segmental barrel-vaulted ceiling, have lost most of their fittings and original decoration.