Central Library, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Central Library, George IV Bridge, Edinburgh

Designed by Sir George Washington Browne between 1887 and 1890, with a bookstack addition built from 1901 to 1903, the Central Library is a multi-storey purpose-built Carnegie public library. Its principal elevations face east and south towards George IV Bridge, with tall upper floors and an attic storey level with the bridge itself. Lower service floors are positioned beneath the bridge level. The building is Greek-cross in plan and executed largely in the French Renaissance style of François Premier.

The upper floors are built in polished ashlar, using Stirlingshire or Northumberland stone, with elaborately carved panels and ornate stonework. The lower floors employ coursed bull-faced sandstone with polished dressings. Window openings have roll-moulded surrounds with chamfered mullions and transoms. The windows of the upper floors are flanked by giant Corinthian pilasters. A tall square-plan pavilion-roofed tower rises over the centre, featuring triple pedimented dormer windows and topped by a two-stage octagonal lantern. A bookstack wing of 1901 occupies the northwest corner, and the north and east walls are faced in white glazed brick.

The east elevation features an arched bridge with stone balustrade connecting George IV Bridge to the main entrance. This entrance is positioned at the centre of a triple round-arched arcade with Diocletian windows. The entrance door is timber and glazed, two-leaf, with a large carved panel above inscribed 'LET THERE BE LIGHT' over rising rays. Flanking the entrance are tripartite windows with Doric colonnettes and carved panels above. The upper-floor windows to the Reference Library have elaborate carved apron panels, each containing a roundel with coats of arms depicting the City of Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Royal Arms. Above these windows runs a modillioned cornice and stone balustrade. A bay to the left breaks the eaves with a smaller window beneath an elaborate pediment.

The main staircase wing at the northeast corner projects forward to the line of George IV Bridge and contains a circular domed turret on an octagonal base with decorative scrolled brackets in the re-entrant angle. The ground floor of this wing has a tripartite central window with Doric colonnettes, below a panel with three heraldic low reliefs and a Diocletian window above. The flanking bays contain single windows with decorative pediments. The attic window features an elaborate Mannerist aedicular surround. The roof is steeply pitched and piended.

The south elevation on Cowgate has a decorative panelled two-leaf timber door in a round-arched surround with a pedimented doorpiece containing an oculus in the pediment. To the outer left is a two-leaf panelled timber door in a pilastered and corniced surround. The top storey (Reference Library floor) has a deep cill course with small round windows. To the right is a gabled bay with an elaborate Mannerist pediment inscribed with 'AC', 'ELP', and '1889'.

The interior comprises a lending library opposite the main entrance, a former newspaper room (with mid-twentieth-century mezzanine) on the lower level, and a reading room above the lending library. These spaces, along with the main staircase, retain much of their late nineteenth-century ornate plaster and timberwork.

On entry, a rectangular columned vestibule with compartmented ceiling runs north to south, joining the main staircases. A dog-leg staircase to the south leads to the lower ground floors—the Edinburgh Room (mezzanine) and the Scottish Library (former Newspaper Room)—and continues down to the Cowgate entrance. The door architrave to the Scottish Library is seventeenth-century, roll-moulded with the inscription 'AT HOSPES HVMO'. Glazed tiles line the walls of this staircase at basement level. The Scottish Library has a compartmented ceiling supported by eight Ionic columns and Ionic pilasters to the corners. The bookstack contains floor-to-ceiling loadbearing timber shelving and cast-iron spiral staircases.

Directly opposite the main entrance, the lending library features oak panelling to the walls and squared oak columns supporting a compartmented ceiling with egg-and-dart cornicing. The entrance has a pedimented doorpiece with broken apex. To the right of the entrance is a wide, processional half-turn staircase of Arbroath or Carmyllie flagstone with landings, square oak pillars, and handrail. On the north wall is a bust of Andrew Carnegie in a shell niche with corniced and pilastered surround; below this is a later door to the fine art department. The top-floor windows are framed by a round arcade on square Corinthian columns. The plaster cornice includes the initials 'AC', and there is a compartmented ceiling with pendants. The door architrave to the Reference Room is seventeenth-century, roll-moulded with the inscription 'TECVM HABITA 1616'. The Reference Room is arcaded with giant Corinthian pilasters on deep bases and scrolled keystones. It contains a pierced shallow central dome with geometric pattern and decorative plasterwork. Behind the arcading are tall bookshelves with a cast-iron gallery accessed by four cast-iron spiral staircases hidden in the corners of the Greek-cross plan.

Small-pane timber sash-and-case windows contain small leaded panes to principal windows. Roofs are laid with grey and green slates. Decorative ashlar chimney stacks with corner pilasters, dentilled cornices, and circular shafts feature throughout.

At George IV Bridge stands a stone balustrade with a pair of square ashlar gatepiers bearing elaborate cast-iron standard lamps. The cast and wrought-iron gates, designed by Thomas Tait of Edinburgh, are highly decorative, featuring thistles and symbols of Edinburgh with the initials 'EPL'.