Bowes Road Library And Arnos Pool

Bowes Road Library and Arnos Pool

A library, swimming pool and caretaker's flat built between 1935 and 1939 by W.T. Curtis, Middlesex County Architect, and H.W. Burchett, Assistant Architect to the Education Committee. The building is constructed in brown brick laid in English bond with flat felt roofs.

The complex comprises two distinct wings: the library runs east-west, while the pool is positioned north-south at the east end of the library.

The library exterior is two storeys. The eastern library element consists of a five-window range. To the west are offices with a first-floor residential flat of irregular fenestration. A tower stands at the east end with double metal doors at ground floor under a flat hood positioned in the angle between library and pool; a free-standing brick pier supports a ball. The tower contains a tall single semi-circular metal window with moulded corbel and pinnacle. The ground floor of the library has eight 9-paned metal casements under a slightly oversailing stone string course with a continuous sill course. The first floor is lit by four tall 2-light metal casements with stone surrounds and moulded sills. A flat plain parapet coping caps the structure, with four glazed roof lights.

The offices feature recessed double timber doors to the left and a single flush door to the right with a glazed panel beside it. Between the doors are six 9-paned metal casements, with a continuous oversailing string course and sill band. The residential flat is rendered and colour-washed, with five metal casements of varying size to the north. It has a flat roof with one stack.

The west return has a long glazed panel to the north and two 9-paned metal casements to the first floor of a two-storey south element.

The south elevation shows the library part with 2-light and single-light metal casements to the ground floor, topped by a sill band and oversailing string course. Four tall 2-light metal casements light the upper floor. The offices are lit through a continuous frieze of metal casements at ground floor, with one 2-light casement either side. An oversailing string course sits above four small single-light windows. The upper floor has five 2-light metal casements.

The interior entrance leads to a staircase hall. A solid baluster staircase swept round at the bottom carries a flat brass handrail on a lower supporting pin with central disk; flat metal supports elsewhere. The reading room occupies the first floor, accessed by two double-leaf glazed doors from the staircase landing. The roof is supported on four rolled steel joists. The ground floor contains plain corridors, offices and a book store with metal shelving.

The Arnos Pool exterior is single-storey. The entrance to the north consists of a half-round projection with double timber doors to the east and west, set within recesses and with glazed upper panels to each leaf. Between the doors to the north is a projecting 7-light window under an oversailing cornice. To the west of the entrance is a single-storey block for changing rooms, lit through a frieze of metal casements under the eaves. The far west end has one circular port-hole window.

The east elevation shows a single-storey element with two port-hole windows and a frieze of four 3-light metal casements under the eaves.

The main pool is raised above other elements and lit through a continuous frieze of clerestory windows to the east and west alternating with ventilation louvres. An overhanging cornice and flat roof complete the design. Various service buildings stand to the south.

The pool interior develops the entrance and ticket office into a building with an oval plan. An oval roof light in plaster, modified to represent waves, features a Vitruvian scroll motif. Four rows of circular light bricks run across the flat ceiling. The ticket office front at the south end is canted with a 1/1 unhorned sash. Doors to the right lead to the pool. The walls and ceiling are tiled. Rolled steel joists support the roof, though a late 20th-century suspended ceiling now blocks the clerestory windows.

The complex is included as a good, little-altered example of a municipal building complex by one of the most progressive local authority architect's departments of the 1930s. The baths and pool form a group with a slightly later clinic built alongside.