Carnegie Free Library, 214, 216 High Street, Montrose

Carnegie Free Library, 214, 216 High Street, Montrose

This large, two-storey public library building was designed by J Lindsay Grant and completed in 1905. It employs a Free Renaissance and Scots Baronial style, constructed in red sandstone with fine droved ashlar to the front elevation and bull-faced ashlar to the rear, complemented by ashlar dressings throughout. The building features a deep, coped base course and a cornice at the eaves, with architraved margins, stone mullions and transoms, and splayed and moulded arrises on the principal elevations. Ground floor windows have lugged and battered cills.

The principal east elevation displays an asymmetrical composition. A main five-bay block occupies the right side with an advanced centre bay, quoins, and an 8-light window at ground floor level surmounted by a carved panel inscribed "Public Library" framed by festoons. The flanking bays contain 4-light windows with keystoned and pedimented heads. At first floor, the centre features a 12-light window bordered by swags, with 6-light windows to either side. The wallhead is pedimented with a carved armorial panel in the tympanum. To the centre stands a single-bay gabled entrance section set back from the main frontage. This comprises a large round-arch doorpiece framed by Ionic pilasters supporting a dentil cornice and pediment, with carving in the tympanum representing the Burgh Arms. The doorpiece is slightly advanced in a segmentally corniced projection; the arch is glazed with lead lights and stained glass, with two-leaf panelled and glazed inner doors. An 8-light window lights the first floor, while a blinded and pedimented slit window occupies the gablehead. An octagonal corner tower to the left, set back in a re-entrant angle, presents two exposed faces with slit windows at ground floor and single windows at first floor bordered by swags.

The south elevation comprises three gable ends with an exposed basement on falling ground to the west. The eastern bay contains a 4-light basement window and a large 16-light window lighting the staircase at both ground and first floors. The central bay features a 3-light basement window and a 12-light window at ground floor in a canted bay with balustrade, a 6-light window at first floor, a slit window to the left, two offset slit windows to the right, and a 3-light window in the gable with a round-arch panel in the gablehead, pedimented at the apex. A corbelled round-section tower in the re-entrant angle at first floor displays a slit window and a lead-covered ogee roof. A five-step flight leads to a lugged and architraved doorway in the return beneath the tower. The western bay is advanced with a splayed corner to the right containing basement and ground floor windows, a window lighting the staircase to the left, and a corbelled first-floor Venetian window at the centre.

The north elevation comprises a two-storey gable-ended section to the left and a single-storey section to the right, set back to the extreme right. The two-storey section displays two 4-light windows at ground floor and a small single window to the right, with a 12-light canted window at first floor set in a deep moulded architrave with a corniced head bearing brackets and swags. A blinded and pedimented slit window occupies the gablehead. The two-bay single-storey section to the right is of bull-faced sandstone with two 6-light windows with small carved pediments above the heads. The bay to the extreme right is set back with two 4-light windows.

The west elevation presents a complex arrangement of sections forming an L-plan. The advanced right section displays bipartite and single windows in the basement, a window above, a 6-light window at ground floor to the left, a 4-light window at the centre, and a corbelled and canted 3-light oriel window at first floor to the centre, breaking the eaves with a parapet. Single windows flank these with gable heads breaking the eaves. The north-facing elevation above the flat roof contains two bipartite windows and a single window at first floor, with a single window in the gablehead. A flat-roofed single-storey section to the left is canted and advanced with a stone-coped parapet wallhead, a 10-light window at the centre, a 6-light window to the right, and an 8-light window in the return to the north. A two-storey block set back displays a 12-light window at the centre with a small window to the right.

The High Street elevations and public rooms feature leaded lights, while private rooms are fitted with timber sash and case windows having four and six-pane upper lights and plate glass lower lights. The pitched roofs are of graded grey slate with decorative terracotta ridge tiles. A corniced ashlar gablehead stack to the south-east breaks the pitch to the south and on the gablehead to the north-west. A large painted bellcote occupies the centre of the east ridge, featuring a square decorated base with four round-arch louvred openings with keystones, paired Doric corner columns, and open pediments. The bellcote is crowned with a corniced lead domed roof with a mast and ball finial. Deep stone skews with scroll skew putts embellish the High Street elevation, and stone ball finials crown the north elevation and entrance. A lead cap surmounts the octagonal tower roof with an ornate wrought-iron weather vane. The ogee roof of the round-section tower is capped with a mast and ball finial.

The interior is excellent and largely intact, undergoing refurbishment circa 1980 with only limited alterations. The hexagonal entrance hall features a black and white marble floor. The ground floor originally contained Ladies, Children's, Reading, Reference, Lending and Workrooms. An arched colonnade with timber Ionic pilasters of pitch pine runs along the ground floor, with some arches glazed as access doors to rooms. Plasterwork and corniced ceilings remain intact. Partly glazed tile walls below the dado are green in the public rooms and red in the hall and staircase. A timber-panelled desk is in place. The main staircase comprises stone steps with an ornate heavy oak balustrade and a mosaic floor on the first floor landing. Timber-panelled internal doors, glazed to the Recreation Room on the first floor, provide access to spaces with barrel-vaulted ceilings. A staircase window features stained glass upper lights depicting the arms of the Burgh with two mermaids supported by two wreaths of roses, beneath which are inscribed the mottos "The Sea Enriches" and "The Rose Adorns". The first floor Librarian's flat was converted into offices. Arts and Crafts style brass window furniture survives throughout.

A stone dwarf wall fronts the High Street elevation, with coped boundary walls enclosing the garden at the rear.