Skipton Library

This public library and former shop was built between 1906 and 1910 to designs by local architects J W Broughton and James Hartley in a mixed Renaissance style.

Construction and Materials

The building is constructed of regularly coursed Eastburn ashlar, with roughly squared and coursed rubblestone and some white glazed facing tiles to the rear. The roof is slate.

Plan and Layout

The library is a three-storey, T-shaped building fronting High Street, with a narrower rear block linking it to a college building behind (which is not of special interest and is excluded from the listing). The two buildings inter-connect internally with doors on each floor. The ground and first floors of the library are linked by a wide staircase. The second floor, formerly used by the museum, has most recently been used by the college, as has a basement (also formerly used by the museum). The south ground-floor bay, originally Wildman's shop, has most recently been used as the main street entrance for the college. The original ginnel entrance runs through the north end of the building.

Exterior

The library stands opposite the Town Hall on the west side of High Street, its façade in line with adjoining building frontages.

The ashlar front elevation has five bays and three tall storeys, plus a basement. The high plinth has a moulded string band. The ground floor features banded rustication, with pilasters defining the bays and frieze bands between floors and beneath the eaves cornice. The roof is hidden behind a parapet with round-headed balustrading and triangular gablets over the second and fourth bays. A stone gable stack stands to each side. The windows have stone mullions and/or transoms with multi-pane leaded lights, except for the timber former shopfront in the first bay.

On the ground floor, a wide, round-headed library entrance occupies the second bay, with a giant enriched keystone that also forms a console bracket for the first-floor oriel window. This features a female head representing Knowledge with cornucopias, flanked by dragons. Rectangular relief-carved panels are attached to the wall on either side of the doorway, depicting classical kneeling female figures holding an open book to the left and a globe to the right. Double iron gates with foliate decoration to the shaped tops stand at the front of the recessed entrance lobby. The lobby has a timber boarded ceiling with moulded cornice, a modern tiled ramped floor, and an inner glazed metal door and screen.

The first bay has a wide, segmental arch flanked by pilasters raised on high bases. Set into the archway is a timber shopfront (in 2023 serving as the Craven College entrance) with a central slender turned mullion, curved spandrels to the recessed doorway on the left, and a plate glass window to the right, with a multi-pane glazed overlight above. The doorway is panelled with a display window (with poster) to the left, an angled window to the right, and a timber boarded ceiling. At the rear are double, panelled and glazed doors with a rectangular overlight. The third and fourth bays each have a pair of large segmental-arched, six-light windows; the central top lights are bottom-hinged and open inwards. These are flanked by outer pilasters raised on high bases. The fifth bay has a round-headed pedestrian entrance to the ginnel (formerly the primary access route to the college building behind), with a metal railing gate and fanlight. The frieze between the ground and first floors has round-headed balustrading beneath the windows, some slightly projecting from the wall face.

Above the library entrance is a canted oriel window with stone mullions and transoms. The first bay of the first floor has a large square-headed, six-light window. The third and fourth bays have square-headed, four-light windows, and the fifth bay has a narrow, two-light, transom window.

On the second floor, the second bay has panelled pilasters with enriched Ionic capitals, a mullion window with four round-headed lights, and relief-carved lettering reading "FREE LIBRARY" on the frieze above. To the left are a pair of two-light mullioned windows separated by a slender pilaster. Bays three and four each have a square-headed, two-light mullioned window, and bay five has a narrow, square-headed, single-light window. The second-bay gablet has a circular window with an enriched and moulded frame and side finials. The fourth-bay gablet also has a circular window, with a blocky stone frame. Both windows have leaded multi-pane glazing.

The visible upper parts of the north and south gable elevations are rendered with stone quoins to the corners and ashlar coping stones.

The rear elevation is of roughly coursed and squared rubblestone with squared ashlar surrounds to the vertical square-headed windows, and a full-height, central projecting link block attaching the library building to the college building behind. On the left-hand, north side of the rear wall are two close bays with windows on the first and second floors, and the ginnel entry to the left on the ground floor, with an adjacent canted window projecting from the ground floor of the link block. The first-floor windows have one-over-one pane horned sashes; the second-floor windows have opening upper casements. The two bays on the right-hand, south side have windows with one-over-one pane horned sashes on the first and second floors. The ground floor is obscured by modern extensions to the college building.

The north side of the link block is inset from the corner of the college building. It has white glazed facing tiles and three vertical square-headed windows with ashlar jambs, sill bands and lintel bands to the first and second floors. The ground-floor canted window outshot wraps round the north-east corner of the college building. It too has white glazed facing tiles and an ashlar mullioned and transomed window frame with a lower row of four tall windows and one angled window at the right-hand end, with a row of shorter windows above, all with timber frames. The lean-to roof is of leaded glass panels.

The south side of the link block is flush with the wall face of the college building on the second floor and projects out and wraps round it on the ground and first floors. The ground floor is obscured by modern extensions. The upper floors are faced in white glazed tiles with squared ashlar dressings to the windows. The mullioned second-floor window has one-over-one pane horned sashes. The first floor has a large, eight-light ashlar mullioned and transomed stair window with a lean-to roof, now with perspex sheets and stone coping. To the left are two pairs of small WC windows with ashlar frames and a lower, lean-to slate roof.

Interior

The layout remains largely unaltered, although original timber panelled and multi-pane glazed partitioning which subdivided spaces was removed in the early 1980s to open out the rooms. The ground and first floors have coffered ceilings with moulded cornices. The building is fitted with a "Tobin Tube" heating and ventilation system throughout, and also "Hope" mechanical opening systems to allow upper windows to be opened.

A vestibule opens out with curved side walls into a wider staircase hall, with the ground-floor library (now children's library) to the right. The open-well staircase rises between the ground and first floors with a wide half landing lit by a staircase window. The staircase has teak treads with a bronze Art Nouveau style balustrade, a moulded swept oak handrail, octagonal newel posts at top and bottom, and oak panelling to the inner walls, with a short section of panelling beneath the steps on the ground floor. The mullioned and transomed stair window has stained glass panels by Seward of Lancaster depicting the Skipton and Clifford coats-of-arms, scrolls, ribbons and the white rose of York. At the rear of the staircase hall are original panelled and part-glazed double doors with a wide moulded architrave linking the library with the college building to the rear.

The two large, segmental-arched windows lighting the front library space have side-hung casements with Art Nouveau iron handles and hopper lights above, opened by the mechanical window opening system. The rear of the library is partially separated by a wall projecting from the north wall. The adjacent canted window lighting the smaller rear space has fixed lower lights and four opening hopper lights above with opening system.

The ground floor of the former Wildman's shop (later college reception) does not interconnect with the library internally; an inserted doorway links it to a modern college extension. There are two boxed-in cross beams and moulded cornices.

On the first floor, the head of the main staircase is enclosed by later partition walls incorporating a timber and glazed screen with a glazed timber door at the east end leading into the opened-out library. The wider front area has a central chimneybreast to the north wall with a tall cast-iron fireplace with Art Nouveau detailing and small, brown glazed tiles to the cheeks. A freestanding square column has oak dado panelling. The front-elevation windows are similarly detailed as the ground floor, with side-hung casements and overhead hopper windows. To the rear, in the south-west corner, the doorway to the WCs and an adjacent doorway linking the library to the college building have five-panelled doors with moulded architraves. In the south-east corner, a repositioned oak panelled and part-glazed door with "Librarian" signage leads into the front first-floor room of the former Wildman's (now computer room). The rear staff room contains a corner timber staircase rising to the second floor with turned balusters and newel posts, ramped handrail and plank-boarded underside.

On the second floor, the front (south-east) room is separated from the stair landing by a partition of relocated oak panelled and multi-pane glazed partitioning and doors. A doorway has been inserted between this room and the large second-floor room (used by the college), which also has a doorway linking it to the college building to the rear. In the centre of the north wall is a chimneybreast. Roof trusses are partly visible beneath the later suspended ceiling, with stone corbel brackets, shaped spandrels between the rafters and tie beams, and purlins, with bolted long iron straps. The windows are fixed and side-hung casements.

Beneath the main staircase, a flight of stone steps leads down to the basement. It has an outer balustrade with square iron rod balusters and a swept timber handrail with a newel roundel. There are three large rooms with concrete floors. The front (east) room has a blocked doorway in the south wall, formerly leading into the basement of Wildman's shop. Off the rear (west) room, in the south-west corner, is a cloakroom and WC area with windows into a light well and two four-panelled doors.

Note on Mapping and Exclusions

The library is attached to the college building (originally the Science and Arts Schools) to the rear, which is not included in the listing. On the north side, the link block of the library has a canted window outshot which wraps round the north-east corner of the college building. On the south side of the link block, the ground and first floors project out and overlap the south-east corner of the college building. The college building and its modern extensions are not of special architectural or historic interest, however any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed library building may still require listed building consent.