North Library And Attached Gate Piers And Railings

A public library originally known as North Islington Library, built in 1905–6 to the designs of architect Henry T. Hare. The building is constructed of red and yellow brick laid in English bond with Portland stone dressings and a slate roof.

The building rises three storeys over a basement and presents a symmetrical seven-window range to its main front, except for a lower porch wing of one-window range projecting to the right. The symmetrical composition features pedimented outer bays.

The porch entrance comprises pilasters and a moulded stone archivolt with double keystone, set within a rectangular architrave with festoons in the spandrels. The cornice carries a lettered panel reading "PUBLIC LIBRARY". The porch interior is cross-vaulted with a shallow domed apse to the right and two flat-arched architraves with keystones facing the entrance—one for a door, the other for the foundation stone. The first-floor porch wing is set back with a flat-arched window having a moulded stone architrave and a parapet with stone coping that sweeps up to the main block.

The main body of the building has a Portland stone base. The outer bays step forward twice with rainwater goods positioned in the re-entrant angles. The ground floor features a keyed oculus and a storey band, while the first floor has a flat-arched window with an eared architrave and plain stone apron. Flush stone quoins rise the height of these bays, capped by a modillion cornice supporting a broken pediment with a central cartouche and festoons, with a stepped parapet behind.

The centre of the building's ground floor contains a sequence of double brick Doric pilasters with stone courses supporting a stone entablature with pulvinated frieze and dentil cornice. Between these pilasters are five flat-arched windows with mullions, transoms, and moulded stone architraves, creating a continuous screen effect. The first floor above has five smaller flat-arched windows with eared architraves and festoons as aprons. The modillion cornice runs through to the eaves.

All windows throughout the building are casements with original leaded glazing.

The roof is of graded slate punctuated by five dormers with alternating segmental and triangular pediments. A central lantern rises at the apex, with pediments on all four sides, an ogee roof, a delicate finial, and a weather vane. Stacks at the gable apexes are finished with stone coping, stone courses, and cornice.

The rear elevation is of yellow brick with red brick dressings and shallow buttresses, terminating in an apsidal form.

Gate piers of brick with stone caps stand in front of the porch, with accompanying area railings fitted with urn standards and spike finials.

The interior features an entrance hall panelled in fine grey stone with a terrazzo floor. The ceiling is barrel-vaulted at the centre with cross-vaults at either end.

The ground-floor front room, originally the children's library, has a coffered ceiling with dentil cornice and a round-arched arcade (now unmoulded) to its rear. Beyond this is an apsidal room that formerly served as the reading room, containing a semi-circular arcade of four Doric columns with radiating beams to the outer walls.

The staircase features a grey stone dado and a dog-leg arrangement with a stone balustrade to the third flight and landing.

The first-floor passage is floored in terrazzo with a ceiling that alternates between cross- and barrel-vaults. The former lecture room to the front has a segmental vaulted ceiling panelled with decorative plasterwork. The rear apsidal room, now and originally the lending library, features a semi-circular arcade of four Corinthian columns.

Elaborate wooden architraves to doors survive throughout the building, many of them pedimented, together with original panelled and glazed doors and original door furniture.