Falmouth Art Gallery And Library; Passmore Edwards Free Library

Falmouth Art Gallery and Library, originally the Passmore Edwards Free Library, is a building of 1896 designed by WH Tresidder, and funded by patrons J Passmore Edwards and Octavius Allen Ferris. It is constructed of squared grey limestone with granite dressings, including a rock-faced plinth, ashlar pilasters, moulded strings and sills, jambs, arches, copings and finials. The roof is dry Delabole slate with gabled cross wings and a central octagonal lantern with a lead dome on an open Tuscan colonnade.

The building was designed with a large, irregular, roughly square plan, incorporating a loggia, vestibule, and a large stair hall with an imperial staircase. The ground floor contained a newspaper and reading room, offices, a strong room, a lending library, a reference library, caretaker's accommodation and rear passages. The first floor included a science room, cloakroom, a council chamber, a mayor's parlour and further science rooms. The style is eclectic, combining Italianate, Renaissance, neo-classical and Flemish details.

The symmetrical two-storey front has a 1:3:1 bay arrangement. Cross wings feature Venetian windows with inscriptions above, panelled pilasters, four horizontal strings, and finials. Paired segmental-arched windows are present on the ground floor. A central distyle-in-antae Tuscan loggia provides access via a roll-moulded granite doorway with original panelled doors, flanked by segmental-arched windows; a moulded entablature above the loggia bears an inscribed name, surmounted by a squat turned balustrade. The first floor features three horizontal strings above the Venetian windows and round-arched windows in the narrower bays. Casement windows are on the ground floor, sashes on the first, with glazing bars and spoked fanlight heads to the central windows of the wings.

Much of the original interior remains, including a glazed screen, granite flagged hall flooring, an open-string staircase with turned balusters, moulded plaster ceiling cornices to the principal rooms, with deep coves in the stair hall and reading room, and panelled doors.

The building cost £7,000, with significant contributions from J Passmore Edwards and Octavius Allen Ferris. It forms part of an important group of buildings in the centre of Falmouth and represents a good example of a Free Style library building of the late 19th century.