Passmore Edwards Free Library And Institute

BODMIN

SX0667 LOWER BORE STREET 629-1/2/85 (South side) Passmore Edwards Free Library and Institute

GV II

Institute and library. 1895. By Silvanus Trevail. For benefactor Passmore Edwards. MATERIALS: coursed squared local rubble with rock-faced granite plinth, otherwise freestone dressings including doorway and mullioned windows; mid-floor and 1st-floor sill strings and gable copings; dry slate roofs with shaped gables, crested clay ridge tiles. PLAN: irregular rectangular plan. Gothic style with Dutch Renaissance features. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys plus attic; symmetrical 1:1:1-bay road front. Central recessed entrance bay flanked by 2 cross wings with shaped gables. 2-light window with balcony balustrade on machicolations over round-arched doorway with vertical-glazed fanlight and panelled doors; flanking bays with paired chamfered attic lights with scrolled heads, over 3-light 1st-floor transomed windows with segmental-arched pediments; ground-floor windows with 4 lights over 2 lights. INTERIOR: original features include round arches to crossing vestibule, moulded ceiling cornices and open-well staircase with open string and turned balusters. HISTORY: Bodmin is one of 11 libraries and institutes donated by John Passmore Edwards to his county of birth. The seed-germ of this great man's philanthropy was possibly created by a traumatic experience he had at Bodmin, when, "as a young office boy in Truro he walked to Bodmin and back, twenty miles each way, to witness the public hanging of two murderers". Later in life he devoted much energy to denouncing capital punishment and fighting for its abolition. Silvanus Trevail (1851-1903) designed 6 buildings for John Passmore Edwards in Cornwall. He was a prolific architect who, apart from other buildings, designed 36 schools in Cornwall and eventually became President of the RIBA in 1901. (Best R S: The Life and Good Works of John Passmore Edwards: Redruth: 1981-: 12, 45).

Listing NGR: SX0675067055