Former Camberwell Public Library and Livesey Museum

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 13/02/2018

TQ3477NE 636-1/38/547

SOUTHWARK OLD KENT ROAD (south east side) No. 682 Former Camberwell Public Library and Livesey Museum

(Formerly listed as No. 682, Camberwell Public Library and Livesey Museum)

II Former public library and museum. Dated 1890. By RP Whellock. For the Parish of Camberwell.

MATERIALS: brick in English bond, with stone, terracotta and rubbed brick dressings. Gable facing roofs of slate, that to the hall with a clerestory; all openings are flat-arched unless otherwise stated.

PLAN: hall or reading room, rectangular in plan, to the left of the site, which projects to the line of the Old Kent Road pavement. Internally four bays, an open timber roof consisting of an arched tie beam, supporting the lower range of the roof, from which springs a king strut supporting the clerestory; each truss tied by a metal bar of original date. The southernhalf of the building destroyed during the war.

EXTERIOR: one-window range. Elevation of hall: canted bay with tripartite windows to first floor level, a round-arched, keyed window below; the bay topped by stone balustrade; gable defined by a elliptical-arched recess pierced by an elliptical light to the hall roof; to either side of bay, entablature band with frieze of swags; corners of quoined brick; upper area of gable with scrolls surrounding an open book; coping treated as a raking dentil cornice; ornamental weather vane at roof peak; on the coved sill of the bay is the inscription "Camberwell Public Library Anno. Dom. 1890".

Plinth of brick unites hall with entrance range, recessed to rear, forming a forecourt: three and a half storeys and a two-window range: entrance recessed by elliptical diaphragm arch; small, elaborately moulded light to upper right spandrel of arch; frieze band between ground and first floor has baskets of fruit in high relief; paired windows above set in Tuscan aedicule of two bays, which continues to second floor as a shallow rectangular bay framing a pair of windows; this centrepiece finishes in a broken segmental gable, pierced by a round, keyed light; gable eaves are flared; gable peak finished with a diminutive decorative gable in Flemish Renaissance style.

INTERIOR: not inspected.

The hall and entrance ranges only are included; the post-WWII extensions to the rear which enclose an open courtyard are not of special architectural interest.

Listing NGR: TQ3464377670