Library, Museum And Art Gallery And Attached Railings

SO9422NE 630-1/9/283

CHELTENHAM CLARENCE STREET (North side) Library, Museum and Art Gallery and attached railings

14/12/83

GV II Library, museum and art gallery with attached railings. Begun 1888-89. Architects: WH Knight and Chatters. Ashlar over brick with tile roof. Mixed Renaissance styles.

EXTERIOR: Two storeys on high plinth. Front subdivided, by pilasters, corner piers to central break, into 3:3:3:1:1 bays. Three stage tower to right with pepperpot corner finials and ogee cap. Central set back gable with statue of Shakespeare. Continuous stone balustrade at parapet with central memorial cartouche. Mullion and transom windows, those on first floor with arched transom lights and pedimented cornices. Centre piece has keyed segmental arch above stepped windows with Venetian tracery and engaged Ionic portico in antis below with arched door and flanking windows. Extra two-window, single-storey bay to right of tower. Entrance to Art Gallery in tower.

INTERIOR: retains original joinery and plasterwork including panelled doors and dogleg staircase with carved newels and shaped balusters. Library entrance hall at left has arched openings on moulded imposts.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: return to St George's Place has area railings with elongated pyramidal caps and taller stanchions, fluted bars. The modern extension to the south-east is not of special architectural or historic interest.

HISTORICAL NOTE: In 1899 Baron de Ferrieres donated to the town his collection of Old Master paintings and £1,500 towards an art gallery in which to display them. Originally the buildings served as both a free library and the schools of Art and Science, which upper rooms were, by 1907, occupied by the Museum. Occupies a good corner site, forming part of a distinguished group of Victorian buildings (within the Regency new town) which include Church of St Matthew, Clarence Street (qv), and Electricity House (qv) and Shaftesbury Hall (qv), St George's Place.

Listing NGR: SO9474522536