Former public hall and library, Canning Town

Former Public Hall and Library, Canning Town

The former public hall and library stand side-by-side facing Barking Road, designed as a single composition although physically connected only by an iron fire escape bridge to the rear at first-floor level. Both buildings are constructed of stock brick with Italianate façades of red brick and Portland stone dressings.

The three-storey public hall is the grander of the two. Its principal feature is a recessed stone arcaded portico of three round-arched openings with carved spandrels, frieze and keystones. Secondary entrances giving access directly to the public assembly hall are set in two-storey bays to either side, each with a shallow segmental pediment and carved tympanum. Above the ground floor, a mezzanine is articulated with a row of œils-de-bœuf windows. The piano nobile comprises three round-headed windows set under a stone pediment with a dentil cornice and the borough arms in the tympanum. A stone balustrade runs along the parapet. The façade is further ornamented with decorative stone friezes and panels carved with cartouches, festoons and swags. Vertical divisions are marked by brick pilasters with stone bands.

Inside the public hall, the ground floor contains an entrance lobby with a foundation plaque recording the names of councillors who oversaw construction. The lobby was originally laid with a mosaic terrazzo floor (now carpeted). Several timber doorcases with moulded architraves, pulvinated frieze and cornice lead from the lobby, revealing the original room arrangement. Above two doorcases are œils-de-bœuf fanlights with decorative plasterwork. To the left is a large hall which originally served as a police court, featuring carved consoles supporting coffered ceiling beams and five further decorative doorcases. To the right, a corridor leads to offices containing original fireplaces and leaded windows with coloured glass. At the rear is a second large room with original cornice and coloured glass windows. Two secondary entrance lobbies, one at each end of the building, have terrazzo floors with wave-scroll patterned edging and secondary staircases with cast-iron splat balusters leading to the upper floor.

The two principal staircases are decorative cast-iron open-well stone staircases with polished hardwood handrails, leading from the main lobby to the mezzanine landing. The landing is lit by stained glass windows in Art Deco designs and gives access to the assembly hall and to the side staircases which lead to its gallery. The gallery has been extended forward towards the proscenium and partitioned beneath to create additional office space, with a modern balustrade. The assembly hall's principal decoration is its ebullient coffered ceiling, unaffected by partial subdivision of the hall. The coffered ribs are supported by Ionic capitals, and Ionic pilasters divide the upper floor window bays. A clerestory of œils-de-bœuf windows, all with coloured glass, lights the space; the walls are blind at stalls level. Two of the original vast metal and frosted glass disc chandeliers remain in-situ. The proscenium arch is decorated with bayleaf garland moulding and laurel wreaths in plaster. The sprung floor of the stage survives, although the proscenium arch has been partitioned. Backstage rooms to either side of the stage each have parquet floors and cast-iron fireplaces in russet tiles with moulded timber surrounds.

The seven-bay library has two storeys under a brick parapet with stone coping, the upper storey with round-headed windows. Storeys are divided by stone bands and the upper floor bays marked by brick pilasters. Stone panels beneath the first-floor windows carry decorative carving. The stone doorcase, located off-centre in the penultimate left-hand bay, has a broken pediment with a cartouche bearing the borough arms and topped by small obelisks. Its frieze is inscribed "Public Library", and square stone piers to either side of the entrance steps have large ball finials.

The library's public areas contain two large reading rooms now opened into a single space. The rear room has a coffered ceiling supported on Doric columns with glazed central panels. A glazed screen in the front reading room creates partitioned office space, possibly a post-Second World War adaptation. The lobby contains a decorative cast-iron spiral staircase and a stone plaque recording that the library was opened by Passmore Edwards in 1893, with an additional plaque noting restoration after war damage in 1952–3. The non-public interior areas were not inspected.