Adult Education Centre And Library

Library and Science, Art and Technical School, now Adult Education Centre and Library, Newton Abbot

This building was constructed between 1901 and 1904 by Silvanus Trevail, a Cornish architect. It stands on Bank Street and Market Street on a corner site and was originally known as the Passmore Edwards Public Library, Science, Art and Technical School. The building was a gift to Newton Abbot from Passmore Edwards, a noted public benefactor, given in memory of his mother. The site, previously known as Harvey's Corner, had been acquired by the County for road improvements. The cost of building the free library was £2,290, with the gift of £2,500 possibly including fixtures, fittings and books. Public subscriptions and a grant from the County Council paid for the Technical School. This is a typical but flamboyant example of the style adopted by Trevail for the Passmore Edwards libraries. It was one of this distinguished Cornish architect's last commissions and was completed after his death in 1903 by his assistant Alfred Cornelius. Only the clock turret was omitted from Trevail's original design.

The building is constructed of squared Devon limestone rubble with yellow ceramic dressings to the Bank Street and Market Street facades, cream English-bond brick to the rear and left return, and crested slate roofs with moulded stacks to the ends and rear, with some incorporated into the pilasters on the facade. It is three storeys tall with an L-plan on the corner site featuring a canted corner bay. The facade presents a 16-window range with 10 windows to the left and 5 to the right of the main entrance in the canted corner bay. Ground, first and second-floor cornices are continuous, with the lower ones and plinth also continuous. The upper floors are articulated by panelled pilasters with finials corbelled out above the lower cornice. Semi-elliptical heads are present on the panes of mullioned and transomed windows, mostly cross-windows. The second floor is elaborate with a variety of cross windows, triangular and curved pediments, Gibbs surrounds, swags and finials. The majority of first-floor windows are paired or triple cross windows below an ornamental frieze and cornice. Ceramic panels with the name of the building form aprons on the first floor. Similar windows appear on the ground floor, where an inside-left pedimented doorcase sits over a segmental arch with panelled double doors.

The main corner entrance features a semicircular-arched window with timber mullions and transom to the second floor set in a Gibbs surround under a pediment with highly ornamented carving with figures representing Art and Learning. Below this is a 3-light first-floor window over a semicircular fanlight with radial glazing bars and double panelled doors flanked by paired pilasters with blocking extending to form a Gibbs surround to the doorcase.

The interior retains a mosaic hall floor, some panelled oak doors, and panelling below a Jacobean-style open-well closed-string staircase with moulded square balusters and newels with pendants. An ornamental leaded stair window and half-glazed double inner doors with a large semicircular fanlight remain.