Carnegie Free Library, 1 High Street, Maybole

The Carnegie Free Library, located at 1 High Street in Maybole, was designed by James Kennedy Hunter and completed in 1906, with alterations and repairs made in 2001. This two-storey library is built in the Scots Renaissance style and occupies a prominent corner site.

The first floor features Venetian windows that break the broad, mutuled eaves cornice. The central entrance on High Street has a pilastered doorpiece with the inscription 'CARNEGIE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY' and a coat of arms above it. The flanking bays, which were altered in 2001 from their original bipartite windows, include an entrance on the left. The curved corner bay has three bipartite windows on the ground floor, while the first floor has a central bipartite window flanked by square pillars that extend beyond the eaves, topped with pyramidal caps on ball feet. A cartouche with a coronet is situated between these pillars, and a conical slated tower with a flat roof and weathervane is also present.

On St Cuthbert's Road, there are three bays, each featuring tripartite windows on the ground floor and Venetian windows above. There is a door to the basement on the outer left side. The building has a battered base course due to the sloping ground on St Cuthbert's Road, and it is constructed from squared and snecked bull-faced pink sandstone with polished ashlar dressings.

The southwest elevation includes a gable on the left with a small bipartite window on the ground floor and a tall transomed bipartite window above it. To the right, there are six ground floor windows and six first floor windows. The library has replacement timber sash and case windows that are in a traditional style. The roof is covered with grey slates, featuring straight skews, coped ashlar ridge stacks, and clay cans, along with cast-iron rainwater goods.

Inside, the library has been recently refurbished, and little of the original fabric remains.