Carnegie Buildings, Victoria Road, Larne, Co Antrim

Carnegie Buildings is a publicly commissioned library, now used as a gallery and museum, built between 1904 and 1906 to designs by Nicholas Fitzsimons (1869–c.1945), a locally based architect of some significance in Irish architectural history. It stands prominently on a corner site on Victoria Road, Larne, and is a confident example of Edwardian Free Style architecture, notable for its considered proportions, distinctive plan form, characteristic decorative details, and largely intact survival. It was opened on 2nd April 1906 by Colonel J.M. McCalmont MP.

The building is two storeys, red brick, and gabled, with a projecting flat-roofed entrance bay to the south-facing principal front that is capped by a scalloped parapet. The roofs are covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses with red terracotta ridge tiles. Rising from the roof is an original metal ventilator turret of tapering profile on an octagonal plan, set on a lead-dressed base, with a wide overhanging octagonal roof domed to its apex and surmounted by a tall finial.

The walls are red brick throughout, with red sandstone copings to the gables. The entrance front is arranged in three bays: a gabled bay two windows wide to each side of the central projecting entrance bay. The entrance doorway is segmental-arched in red sandstone, with a projecting semi-circular hood moulding that flattens at its extremities and rests on a red sandstone pilaster to each side. Two concrete steps lead up to the doorway, contained by low red brick plinths that were later cement-rendered and now show cracks revealing the brickwork beneath. The double doors are rectangular, dark-stained timber, with six panels to each leaf, set in a moulded timber door frame with a two-panel segmental wooden tympanum above; an original scrolling metal lamp is attached to this tympanum. The doorcase continues upward into a dated inscription panel in red sandstone flanked by scrolling sandstone brackets, reading "Carnegie Free Library 1905." Above this panel, a red sandstone string course acts as a sill for a semi-circular brick-arched window divided into small panes by a timber transom and three mullions with thin wooden glazing bars. The arch of this lunette has rusticated brick voussoirs at regular intervals with a red sandstone keystone, all contained within a rectangular panel between red brick pilasters at the outer edges of the entrance bay, below a cornice. Red brick dentils run along the cornice, above which an oversailing moulded red sandstone cornice is surmounted by a red brick parapet in two lengths between three short piers, with a scalloped profile to the sandstone coping.

The sides of the projecting entrance bay are detailed in the same style as the front: three rectangular timber fixed-light windows in plate glass at ground floor level, with red sandstone sills and large continuous red sandstone heads, set within segmental-arched brick recesses, with a red terracotta string course above. At first floor level to each side is a circular timber-framed window divided into twelve panes, set in brickwork with alternating rusticated and elongated voussoirs and a red sandstone keystone. Circular cast iron downpipes from polygonal hoppers are positioned in the angles between the side walls of the entrance bay and the main front walls.

The gabled bays to each side of the entrance bay contain two windows on each floor. The ground floor windows are segmental-headed in timber, divided by a transom and central mullion into an eight-over-two arrangement, all fixed lights, with red sandstone sills, segmental brick-arched heads, and brick reveals. A red terracotta string course runs at first floor level and again at sill level of the first floor windows. The first floor windows repeat the ground floor arrangement but are set within stilted semi-circular arched recesses, with patterned brick tympana above the segmental arched heads. High in each gable, between the recesses, is a blind ocular brick panel filled with patterned brickwork. At the outer extremity of each gabled front bay, a two-storey buttress pier in red brick is topped with a red sandstone cornice on brick dentils and brick blocking courses above.

The west elevation is two storeys and gabled, with two windows on each floor, a central bay flanked by two-storey red brick pilasters, and wall treatment similar to the entrance front. The ground floor windows are like those in the gabled bays of the main front. Upper windows are rectangular with transom and mullion, divided by glazing bars into a twelve-over-two arrangement, surmounted by a semi-circular fixed pane within a semi-circular brick-arched opening. Circular section cast iron downpipes are positioned in the angles with the brick pilasters, the left-hand one discharging onto the roof of a hipped single-storey rear projection. At the left-hand extremity of the gable, above the blocking course over the pilaster, is a rectangular section red brick chimney with a projecting red brick string course and cornice. A further circular cast iron downpipe runs at the left-hand extremity of the main wall.

Projecting to the left-hand side of the main wall at the rear is a single-storey building with a hipped roof matching the main roofs. Its west side has a moulded cast iron gutter carried on shaped projecting rafter ends, a moulded timber fascia to the swept hipped roof, a circular cast iron downpipe, and three rectangular timber windows set in segmental brick heads: a central eight-over-two fixed window flanked by narrower four-over-one fixed windows. To the right of these is a circular timber window in a brick surround, divided horizontally into a bottom-hung top light over a fixed two-over-two light.

The north elevation shows the two-storey rear wall of the main block behind the projecting single-storey rear block. The main block has a hipped roof with the ventilator turret centrally positioned, behind a full-width red brick parapet wall. A red brick chimney stands at each extremity of the rear wall, each of rectangular section and moulded as previously described, with scrolling red sandstone brackets to each side at the base; the left-hand chimney retains one terracotta pot. Red sandstone cornices return to each side from the main side elevations at the top of the two-storey brick end piers. Segmental-arched brick windows with rectangular eight-over-two fixed lights are symmetrically arranged across the first floor of the rear wall. The lower rear block has a hipped slate roof with a moulded cast iron gutter on projecting rafter ends and two circular section cast iron downpipes. Four eight-over-two windows in segmental brick openings are regularly spaced across the rear block, with a segmental-arched doorway and one narrow four-over-one window to the left. The door has been faced with later flush plywood boarding and has no handles, below a plain fanlight. At the right-hand extremity, a low red brick wall projects and returns across the face of the rear block to contain concrete steps down to a basement. The basement door is original ledged timber with an open vent panel at the top closed by an iron grille. An original curvilinear iron light bracket is mounted on the wall above the steps, though the globe shade has been broken off. The east elevation mirrors the west, including the projecting single-storey rear block.

Internally, the building retains characteristic Art Nouveau tiling and all its original features, surviving largely intact despite a few changes.

The building stands in an elevated position on its corner site, with grassed areas to each side, shrubs in flower beds against the walls, and later concrete paths. Modern tubular metal railings line the long path to the east, while original tubular metal railings line the steps to the front, extending from the main entrance piers up to turned posts just before the entrance doorway. The boundary to the south and west is formed by a basalt rubble wall with a mature hedge growing behind it, curving around the corner. Aligned with the main entrance is a pair of red brick gate piers, each with a pilaster-like projection on the centre of each face, a red terracotta string course, and a red sandstone weathered cap. The pair of pedestrian gates is original, in ornamentally treated wrought iron. At the right-hand extremity of the front boundary, a single matching red brick pier abuts a pair of basalt rubble piers containing a further pair of similar original iron gates. The boundary walling to the west terminates at the rear of the site with a pair of matching red brick piers, these now containing a timber slatted gate, presumed to be a later replacement for an original iron gate that is missing; low red brick walls project back from the piers to contain concrete steps up to the rear of the building. The boundary to the north is a low basalt rubble wall, and to the east is wire fencing on concrete posts.

The listing extent includes the Carnegie Buildings themselves together with the boundary wall, gate piers, and iron gates. The building is in local government ownership.