St George The Martyr Library

SOUTHWARK

TQ3179 BOROUGH ROAD 636-1/4/105 (North side) No.12 St George the Martyr Library

II

Library. 1897-1899 by CJ Phipps and Arthur Blomfield Jackson. For Passmore Edwards. Red brick and terracotta with a pitched, tiled roof. Art Nouveau style. PLAN: rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys over basement with dormer window to east side. The main front, with its double-height central porch, gives the impression of symmetry but the eastern half of the building incorporates an attic floor and this is reflected in the different spacings of the windows. The upper part of the porch is clad in terracotta and has a relief of St George slaying the dragon contained within the shaped gable. Below that is a large 2-light, trefoil-headed and traceried window which surmounts another elaborately modelled terracotta plaque with the words 'Passmore Edwards Public Library 1898' over the main entrance. Bronze plaque commemorating Sir William Molesworth by Sir George Frampton inside the porch. A similar plaque, in memory of Henry Austen Layard, the Assyriologist and also an MP for Southwark, was stolen in 1990. The whole ground floor is pilastered, the run of pilasters being terminated by corner buttresses ornamented by blind tracery above the eaves. Second segmental-arched entrance to right wing. Left return with shaped gable filled with shallow terracotta relief; range of motifs similar to those on the main elevation; broad segmental-arched and multi-light window with transoms filling virtually the whole return: leaded lights to upper windows, sashes to lower. Below wall pilastered between corner buttresses. Right return plainer, but still repeating shaped gable and traceried buttresses. INTERIOR: not inspected.

Listing NGR: TQ3173879494