Teddington Library

Overview and History

Teddington Library is a public library built in 1906 to serve the expanding suburb. It was designed by HA Cheers in the Edwardian Baroque style and funded by Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born iron and steel magnate whose philanthropic library building scheme was pivotal to the success of free libraries across Britain at the turn of the 20th century. The building is inscribed 'Carnegie Library' and represents the civic pride associated with public libraries of this era.

Architectural Character

The library presents a handsome Edwardian Baroque façade built of red brick with Portland stone and gauged brick dressings, whilst the flanks and rear are of stock brick. The roofs are slate. The façade has a one-and-a-half-storey frontage with a symmetrical arrangement of bays in a 1:3:1 pattern.

The centrepiece is a pedimented entrance set behind a screen of paired Ionic columns with pronounced rectangular blocks and cherubic heads carved in the capitals. The bases of the column pairs have inscribed granite foundation stones. The pediment is enriched with a cartouche inscribed 'Carnegie Library'. Above the entrance, the central bay has full dormer sash windows—the central window with a segmental pediment, the smaller flanking sashes with triangular pediments. Dominating the roofline is a bell turret or flèche with a splayed copper dome, flanked by tall brick stacks.

Each flanking bay rises to one and a half storeys beneath an enriched shaped gable, the right-hand gable dated 1906. Each bay has a canted ground-floor window with the transoms standing forward from the sashes, and a broken (open at the apex) segmental-pedimented first-floor window. Upper-floor windows are small-paned sashes with heavy glazing bars. Some upper lights on the ground-floor windows have leaded panes with armorial glass.

The round-arched entrance has a moulded stone architrave with pronounced quoins within a gauged brick arch. Heavy panelled doors lead to a lobby lined in green glazed tiles with a terrazzo floor featuring a central crest. The inner doors are of lighter panelling with glazed upper panes and moulded aprons, retaining original door furniture.

Attached to the left is the librarian's accommodation, typical of libraries built from around 1900, which has a first-floor canted oriel window.

Interior Arrangement and Features

The entrance lobby opens onto the main library through an Ionic screen of polished stone columns on tall bases. The main library is single-storey and top-lit, with a richly decorated ceiling and panelled dado. Deep curved ceiling ribs are supported on brackets, each carved with a badge inscribed with the name of an author. Reading clockwise from the left of the entrance, these are: Lytton, Plato, Longfellow, Homer, Bede, Milton, Dickens and Byron. The ceiling comprises flat glazed panels enriched with green coloured glass beneath a pitched glazed roof.

An open three-bay screen of square-based battered piers separates the main library from the former newspaper library, which is set at right angles to the street. This room is arranged in five bays (1:3:1) and is both top-lit and lit by paired sashes in the south wall. It is similarly decorated to the main library, with a moulded coved frieze and cartouches inscribed with authors' names. Reading clockwise from the left of the entrance, these are: Chaucer, Gray, Scott, Pope, Bunyan, Burns, Bacon and Shakespeare. The ceiling has a segmental glazed roof. A glazed bay window with upper leaded lights enriched with swags of green coloured glass overlooks the garden to the rear, accessed by French windows.

To the left of the main library, a round-arched opening gives onto a rectangular room beneath a glazed dome. The drum has enriched panels and the roof features leaded glazing with coloured glass panels. This room opens onto a front room similar to the reference room opposite it. These rooms have lighter moulded ceilings and dados, with windows featuring moulded shafts and leaded panes to the upper lights.

Flanking the entrance are WCs. The tiled WC to the right of the entrance has a Doulton wash basin and cistern.

The internal layout of the library has been altered and shelving has been replaced. Other fittings include a regulator clock and a detached bronze bust of Noel Coward, who was born nearby, by Avril Vellacot. A bronze memorial wall plaque commemorates author RD Blackmore (1825-1900), who lived in Teddington, marking the centenary of his birth.

Historical Context and Layout

Free libraries were built in large numbers in the later 19th century and at the turn of the century, often as part of a municipal group and frequently in Baroque style. In reality, libraries were expensive to build and stock, and benefactors such as Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) were pivotal to their success. Many suburban libraries were built with Carnegie funding, including Twickenham library the following year in 1907.

By 1890, most libraries would have had an entrance hall, a large reading room for newspapers, another large room for the reference library and a smaller space for the lending library linked to the book store. A scheme emerged in which a two- or three-storey frontage might contain a ladies' library, magazine room or children's library, with larger and often top-lit rooms behind housing the news room, reference section and bookstore. A copy of a plan of the interior of Teddington Library dated 1906 describes a comparable and early, if not original, layout with a central adult library, newspaper room to the right, and flanking the entrance, a magazine room and reference library.

The library is of particular note for the inscribed plaster cartouches which decorate the two main reading rooms, which encouraged the diligent reader and provide an insight into Edwardian literary tastes.

Early photographs show the library behind a parapet wall and railings which have since been removed.

The Architect

HA Cheers (1853-1914), who lived in Twickenham from 1884, was an accomplished architect who specialised in public buildings. East Ham Town Hall, designed with Joseph Smith, has been described as 'the supreme example of the power and confidence of the Edwardian local authority'. His work included the Guildhall, Oswestry (1893) and the Library, Kingston upon Hull (1894), Newnham Council Offices (East Ham Town Hall) of 1901-3, and East Ham Technical College of 1903-4.