Library and museum, Peterhead

Library and Museum, Peterhead

Designed by Aberdeen-based architect Duncan McMillan and built between 1891 and 1893, Peterhead Library and Arbuthnot Museum is a two-storey, purpose-built Carnegie public library and museum in the Free Renaissance style with attached librarian's accommodation. The building is constructed in coursed and squared pink Peterhead granite with moulded band and eaves courses and an oriel window on each street elevation. A squared clock-tower with four pedimented dials, topped by a dome and tall cupola, stands at the southeast corner. The building occupies a corner site at the junction of St Peter Street and Queen Street in Peterhead.

The principal southeast elevation on St Peter Street is five bays wide (not including the clock-tower) with a three-bay former librarian's house attached to the southwest elevation at a lower height. The library entrance is framed by polished granite pilasters with stylised scrolls and pedimented tops. A name plaque with a small pediment above reads: "PUBLIC LIBRARY / AND / ARBUTHNOT MUSEUM". The arched opening contains a two-leaf panelled timber door with a fanlight above. The entrance to the librarian's house is also on St Peter Street. The northeast elevation on Queen Street is three bays wide and features a central oriel window at first floor level with a curvilinear end chimneystack above.

The windows vary in size, shape and style. Some are timber sash and case frames; others are fixed lights with timber mullions, transoms and multi-paned toplights. Ground-floor openings are rectangular, while first-floor windows rise into depressed key-blocked arches. The oriel windows have stone mullions and taper upwards into pedimented curvilinear gables. The librarian's house has pedimented dormers breaking the roof eaves and timber sash and case window frames with two-pane glazing.

The roof is largely pitched and covered in slate, with some flat-roofed areas covered in bituminous felt. Five sets of corniced chimneystacks and cast iron rainwater goods are distributed throughout. The librarian's house has straight skews with banding decoration ending in shaped block skewputts.

The interior of the library retains late-19th-century features with classical architectural detailing, including timber wainscoting throughout, moulded cornicing and timber doors and doorpieces on the first floor. The foyer has a tiled floor, polished timber pilasters and columns with foliate capitals, and a stone staircase with moulded timber balusters and newel posts leading to the museum on the first floor.

A small garden area lies between the northeast elevation and iron railings bounding the property on Queen Street. Two granite gatepiers with pyramidal caps stand between the library and the adjacent Methodist church. A detached single-storey outbuilding is located behind the librarian's house, and a single granite gatepier with a pyramidal cap marks the property boundary.

Historical Development

The modern public library system began with the Public Libraries Act of 1850, extended to Scotland in 1853, which gave town councils the power to raise a half-penny rate through taxation to provide library buildings, maintenance and staff.

The most prolific period of public library construction was between 1883 and the end of the First World War, driven by legislative amendments to the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act and philanthropic gifts from wealthy benefactors. The most notable was Scottish-American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), who established a library grant scheme requiring town councils to adopt the Public Libraries Act to access donations.

When three Peterhead men wrote to Carnegie in 1889 requesting assistance, Carnegie responded: "if Peterhead adopted the Free Library Act and raised a fund for a library building, I would give the last thousand pounds required for a suitable structure."

Peterhead town council adopted the Public Libraries (Scotland) Act on 27 February 1890. A multi-use library building incorporating exhibition and art gallery space was chosen to permanently house the museum collection bequeathed to the town by local merchant Adam Arbuthnot upon his death in 1850.

Duncan McMillan won the design competition for the new library and museum building. Carnegie donated £1,000, with additional funds raised through fundraising bazaars. The foundation stone was laid by Carnegie's wife, Louise Carnegie, on 8 August 1891. A year later, Carnegie gave a blank cheque to the town to leave the library free of any debt. The purpose-built library and museum opened to the public on 12 October 1893.

The footprint of the library has remained substantially unchanged since the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900, which shows a rectangular-plan library with librarian's accommodation attached to its southwest elevation and a detached outbuilding to the rear. The library and museum continue in use as such, with the attached librarian's house now serving as library offices as of 2022.