Library And Museum

Library and Museum

This library and museum on North Hill in Plymouth was designed by Thornely and Rooke and completed in 1907. It was damaged during the Blitz and subsequently restored. The building is constructed in Plymouth limestone ashlar with limestone dressings, featuring dry slate roofs behind tall parapets with modillion cornices and moulded entablatures. Dressed stone stacks have moulded entablatures. The building is executed in Edwardian Baroque style.

The structure has a very long plan articulated at the front. The single-storey museum section sits over a basement (lit on the first floor by roof lights), while the entrance and stair projections rise to two storeys.

The museum front is symmetrical with a 1:3:3:3:1-bay arrangement, while the library front is symmetrical with a 3:1:3-bay arrangement plus an additional bay on the right. All bays rest on a plinth or basement serving as plinth. The single bays project forward and are surmounted by pediments with modillion cornices matching the parapet cornice. The projecting central bays of the museum have a stepped parapet with a central Diocletian window with stepped keys and swagged festoons to the spandrels. Narrow flanking bays project forward with panels to the parapet, all featuring modillion cornices.

Below the parapet entablature is a recessed central bay displaying a giant order of distyle composite columns in antis. Between the columns sits a moulded 3-light mullioned window over a round-arched recessed doorway with moulded keyblock and moulded inner and outer imposts. The arch and festooned spandrels have channelled rustication, carried through two orders of Tuscan pilasters. The flanking bays have channelled rustication, each with a tall first-floor window with elaborate architrave over a square 2-light window within a moulded architrave, both with aprons. The flanking groups of three bays have paired composite columns flanking bays containing tripartite windows with central open pediments over entablature and attached Tuscan columns. These bays stand on a basement with channelled rustication and keyed segmental-arched openings to the right-hand basement. Each narrow end bay of the museum has a triangular pediment over a 3-light mullioned window with apron. A pavement-level doorway has an open and broken pediment framing a panel within a moulded architrave.

The library's projecting central bay has a stepped parapet with an open pediment on a giant order of paired square composite columns. A Venetian window with composite columns rises into the festooned pediment. An open-pedimented Tuscan doorway with a cartouche sits above a scene depicting the ship Mayflower within the tympanum of a round-arched inner doorway. Each group of three flanking bays has a central window with an open segmental pediment and flanking windows with open triangular pediments, all on attached columns. The bay at the far right has channelled rustication and a cartouche over a tripartite window with an open segmental pediment.

The interior was restored in 1954 and contains notable features at the main entrance, including a cantilevered stone staircase and stained glass celebrating literary figures by Morris & Co, dating to 1925. This is a confident example of a public building in the characteristic Edwardian Baroque style.