Camborne Library

Camborne Library

Library built in 1894–5, designed by Silvanus Trevail for the philanthropist John Passmore Edwards. The builder was John Symons & Sons of Blackwater. The building is executed in Free Jacobean style with Arts and Crafts idiom.

The external walls are constructed of rock-faced pink elvan stone with granite quoins and other dressings in Bath stone. The roof is covered in Delabole slate with decorative ridge tiles and finials. The building retains its original metal-framed windows with hopper sections, mostly set within Bath stone window surrounds featuring mullions and transoms.

The plan responds to an irregularly-shaped site with an asymmetrical L-shaped arrangement formed by two long ranges set at right angles, with the angle pointing north and the ranges extending to the south-west and south-east. The stair block fills the space between the ranges to the south, with the entrance tower facing The Cross.

The south-west and south-east elevations, designed to be viewed from multiple angles from their open position overlooking The Cross, present asymmetrical and complex surfaces with recessing and projecting blocks, canted corners, and bay and oriel windows, reflected in a complex and varied roofline. The south-east frontage comprises three unequal bays. The library's entrance occupies a narrow central tower bay, with the original eight-panelled door set deep within a three-centred arch with convex and concave mouldings. Above the door is an ogival hoodmould with a scrolled finial at the apex. The spandrels contain carving of twining husks and acanthus. Square pilasters to either side have recessed panels and capitals with small central heads. These support the frieze, inscribed 'PASSMORE EDWARDS / FREE LIBRARY' in raised lettering. The doorcase is topped by a tented pediment. Above this are two vertical single-light windows. The upper stages of the tower are of limestone, with a stage containing three tall narrow round-headed windows separated by attached shafts, below a parapet with pierced strapwork decoration in Jacobean style and ramped corners.

The gabled right-hand bay is of two storeys. Each storey has an elaborate window forming part of a single design feature: the ground-floor window has four lights with two wide mullions framing the two central lights, a narrower central mullion and transoms. Moulded corbels springing from the wide mullions support the canted oriel window of the upper storey, which contains five round-headed lights and a pedimented centre with a cartouche. Above this is a louvred ventilation opening divided by a shaft clasped by two scrolled straps rising through the centre of the gable's pedimented finial, which has a pulvinated band with acanthus carving. Below the ground-floor window is a foundation stone commemorating the laying of the foundation stone by J. Passmore Edwards on 10 April 1894. The right-hand edge of this bay is defined by a shallow offset buttress, from which a shaft clasped by scrolls rises into a finial.

The left-hand bay represents the two-storey stair block, set back between the entrance tower and the long south-west range, with a single-storey block (now containing a kitchen) in front. The south corner is canted. The stair block has square-headed windows to the first floor; the ground-floor block has three small windows in limestone frames with recessed decoration to the heads, below a parapet with ramped corners.

At the south end of the south-west range, the upper and lower reading rooms project in a deep canted bay with square-headed lights to the ground floor and round-headed lights above. Above the ground-floor windows are foliate corbels supporting angle pilasters. Above the first-floor windows is a panel of scrolled acanthus. The gable is pedimented above a ventilation opening, as in the right-hand bay to the south-east frontage. The parapets in this elevation are shaped, rising to either side of the central pediment.

The straight north-east elevation, running alongside Cross Street, is much less elaborate, being in a single plane with two-light mullioned and transomed windows to the ground floor and plain window openings above. Interest is provided by a stone stack rising above the eaves, with a scrolled plinth and attached shafts.

The north-west elevation, facing a yard and not designed for public appreciation, is built of rubblestone with granite lintels to the openings. The left-hand part is blank with a lean-to shed at ground-floor level, whilst the right has three bays of windows lighting the reading rooms. A door in a modified opening gives access to the yard. The southernmost bay forms the end of the canted reading room range, with design treatment corresponding to that given to the public-facing part of the building.

The interior is accessed through front doors opening to a small lobby containing a brass plaque commemorating the donor, Octavius Allen Ferris. The inner door to the stair hall is framed by an arched wooden surround containing a fanlight and marginal lights, with spandrels pierced by quatrefoils sweeping upwards to a pediment with curved top broken to provide a niche for a ball finial. The door itself is a later replacement with 19th-century decorative engraved brass bar handles. Both lobby and stair hall retain original polychromatic tiles and dado panelling. A lift shaft has been inserted in the northern corner of the stair hall.

The open-well stair rises from the south-east with a landing beneath the bay window. The two lowest treads are wide with curved ends, and the open strings are carved with strapwork decoration. The balusters are turned with more elaborately turned and carved newel posts. Beneath the stair landing is an original timber panelled door forming part of the panelling scheme. On the ground floor, the wall between the north-east room (originally the lending library) and the room to the north-west (originally the newspaper reading room) has been largely removed, creating a single public library space. The inner angles of the windows are chamfered, and beaded beams are exposed; the floors are covered. Within the former lending library is a marble bust of Richard Trevithick, presented by Passmore Edwards in 1903. The doors to these rooms are modern.

On the first floor, the vaulted roof of the large reading room (originally the periodical room and reference library, now the local history library) has five chamfered timber trusses with decorative mouldings to the angles. The doors to this room are original. The north-east range originally contained a committee room to the south (later the museum), with a book repairing room and librarian's room to the north. The space is now reconfigured with a lobby; the south room retains its vaulted roof and trusses, but the two other rooms have false ceilings, and all doors in this area are new. The upper-storey floors are covered.

The low wall with ramp, steps, and decorative open metalwork panel dates from the early 21st century and replaces an earlier low wall which originally surrounded the area in front of the library. This addition is declared not to be of special architectural or historic interest.