The Old Reading Room, Castletown

The Old Reading Room in Castletown, dated 1866, is a single-storey gabled reading room and cottage, featuring five bays arranged in a 3-2 grouping, with the lower bays of the cottage located to the right. The building is constructed from squared, snecked, and stugged stone, accented with ashlar dressings and chamfered arrises.

The reading room consists of three bays on the left, with a central door that is pedimented and pilastered, featuring a blocked fanlight above, and the initials 'AMT' carved in flowing script. To the left of the door is a broad gabled panel with a five-light bowed window, which has an ashlar apron, stone mullions, and a half-conical roof, along with a quatrefoil in the gablehead. Adjacent to this is a narrower gabled panel that contains a pedimented window and an oval panel in the gablehead, which is carved with a shield and motto.

The cottage on the right has two lower bays, with two advanced gabled bays. The narrower bay to the left features a corniced window at the front, an arched arrowslit, and a datestone in the gablehead, with a door on the return to the left. The wider bay to the right includes a canted window and a round panel in the gablehead, which is carved with a key motif.

At the rear, there are four tall windows for the reading room and two windows for the lower cottage, with a brick lean-to in the re-entrant angle slightly masking the window to the right. The windows are currently blocked as of 1997. The roof is covered with graded grey slate, and there are stone finials on the gableheads, along with ashlar coping on the steep gablehead skews and ashlar stacks.

The interior was not seen in 1997. The front features a low coped rubble wall, which is harled on the side, and there is a short flight of steps with a gablet coped dwarf wall between the terraced levels.