Victoria Library

VICTORIA LIBRARY

Public library for the parish of St George's, Hanover Square, built 1892–4 to designs by A. J. Bolton. The building was constructed on land given by the First Duke of Westminster, following a design competition, with Bolton being an architect who had worked for the Grosvenor Estate.

The library is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with Portland Stone dressings, and some terracotta to the rear. The roof is slate, set behind a lowered parapet.

The plan comprises a three-part composition with two double-height halls to the rear, an entrance foyer, stair hall, and two-storey-and-attic accommodation to the front.

The Buckingham Palace Road façade is arranged as a three-bay composition. The central porch carries a four-light mullion and transom window that breaks forward, flanked by narrow single lights on either side. The inscription "SG HS PUBLIC LIBRARY" is carved in the stonework between ground and first floors. To either side are four-light mullion and transom casement windows; those on the first floor feature Corinthian pilasters and a frieze, while those on the second floor have an even greater profusion of pilasters set over the cornice.

The rear elevation features two brick gables containing double-height windows, with an oculus window above the southernmost example. Between the gables stands a projecting porch leading to the reading room, signed in terracotta along with the date 1892. This inscription forms part of an imposing pedimented terracotta door case topped by finials. The frontage is enclosed by good highly decorative wrought iron railings, consistent with those of the adjacent terrace.

The interior retains a coffered ceiling to the vestibule, which leads to a foyer from which rises a straight single-flight stair with cast-iron balustrade. Some panelling survives in the reading area of the inner foyer. The first floor rooms of the front block have a geometric ribbed moulded decorative plaster ceiling.

The lending library, housed in the former reading room, contains a first floor gallery on three sides supported on columns with cast-iron balustrade beneath an open timber clerestoried roof comprising three Queen post trusses with posts formed of small classical columns. The present records office, occupying the former lending library, features a gallery with a more elaborate ironwork balustrade and original fixed shelving. This hall retains the original book hoist, a rare survival from when books for lending were not openly accessible to the public but had to be ordered from catalogues formally located in the hall.