Tate Library

The Tate Library is a public library built in 1892 by architect Sidney R.J. Smith and endowed by Henry Tate. It is designed in a Free Renaissance style and constructed from red brick, Portland stone, and Beer stone, with slate roofs. The building is symmetrical, featuring two storeys and seven bays. The central entrance bay is pedimented and made of stone, with superimposed orders of paired columns, the third order supporting a pediment above the roof line. The entrance has paired panelled doors framed by heavily enriched flanking piers and spandrels. The upper storeys project forward and include a small balustraded balcony. The outer bays and the right return are also pedimented, supported by diminishing pilasters, with tripartite windows set under complex arches. The central bays have similar windows but in simpler architraves. The ground floor is made of rusticated brick on a deep stone plinth, with tripartite windows under simple brick arches and a stone storey band. The left return features a tripartite window with arched heads and small leaded panes, some of which contain armorial glass. The roof is hipped and covered with slate, supported by carved brackets, and features grotesque animal gargoyles that feed into rainwater pipes, along with a small central timber cupola. The rear bay is a simpler two-storey structure. Iron railings are attached to the front and right return.

Inside, there is a grand staircase with an iron balustrade leading to the upper floor reference library, which runs across the front of the building. The cornice is embellished with shell-like brackets, which are also present on the stair window architrave. The reference room has clerestory lunettes on the rear wall. The ground floor originally included a newspaper room on the right, a magazine room on the left, and a lending library at the rear, with some suspended ceilings. A stone tablet dated 1892 commemorates Henry Tate, and a bronze medallion of King Alfred, dated 1901, commemorates Queen Victoria.