Dumbarton Library, 13-15 Strathleven Place, Dumbarton

Dumbarton Library is a two-storey building with basement, purpose-built as a Carnegie public library and designed by William Reid. Dated 1909 and opened to the public on 26 September 1910, it is constructed in rusticated, coursed, pale Dalreoch ashlar sandstone with a red brick rear section featuring contrasting ashlar margins. The building is designed in Baroque classical style and comprises three bays across its principal southeast elevation.

The principal elevation displays a recessed aediculed bay with a central window opening and the town Coat of Arms above, flanked by two pairs of Ionic columns. The building is inscribed 'Public Library'. Steps lead up to a round-arched entrance in the right-hand bay with a datestone inscribed '1909' above. The entrance features a replacement door with a semi-circular coloured glass fanlight. The left-hand corner bay rises two storeys high with a tall attic parapet returning to the west. Open pediments break the roof eaves with putti decoration, and a pediment sits above the ground floor window opening. A string course runs at ground floor level, with a dentilled cornice below the roofline and balustraded decoration above.

A separate dedicated committee room on the upper floor is accessed via a pedimented entrance archway from Strathleven Place, featuring a timber multi-panelled door and a cornice on console brackets above. A separate pedestrian entrance leads to basement level from Strathleven Place.

Windows vary in size, shape and style, comprising a mixture of replacement uPVC and earlier timber frames with predominantly multi-pane glazing patterns of various configurations. The committee room section retains predominantly timber window frames, while the brick-built rear section has tall, narrow windows with mostly replacement uPVC glazing.

Roofs are shallowly pitched and slate-covered with some flat-roofed areas. Regularly placed roof ventilators line the roof ridges and some chimneystacks remain in situ.

The interior retains many early 20th-century neo-Baroque and classical style features, including vaulted plasterwork ceilings to the main ground floor rooms, moulded cornicing, ventilation grilles, translucent rooflights, the librarian's room cupola, glazed partitions, timber panelling, doors, and glazed floor tiles. Decorative coloured glass glazing is used throughout. The side entrance features a stone staircase with moulded timber balusters leading to the committee room, which contains timber panelling and decorative plasterwork.

A bell-shaped stone tablet dated 1732 and 1790, inscribed 'Tu Des Corona Decus' (meaning 'Do Thou Give Me Glory For a Crown'), is mounted above a fire exit in the eastern wall of the 1968 extension. Originally part of the Collegiate Church of St Mary, it later formed part of a dormer in the 18th-century Mackenzie House on the High Street before being relocated here in 1969.

Low stone walls with pyramidal coping front the pavement along Strathleven Place. Sandstone rubble boundary walls with flat coping bound the property along Church Street and the roundabout elevation.

Historical Background

In August 1904, Andrew Carnegie offered £6,000 towards a new library for Dumbarton on condition that a suitable site be secured without burdening ratepayers. The offer was accepted, but four years elapsed before a suitable site was found. The site along Strathleven Place was purchased from the Town Council for £750 and raised by public subscription.

A design competition for the new library was won by local architect William Reid. His plans were approved on 4 January 1909 by the Dean of Guild and the library was constructed largely as outlined on these plans. The library opened to the public on 26 September 1910 and first appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1914. At construction, it was flanked by existing buildings on both sides and the town tram network ran along Strathleven Place.

In 1951, library management changed from closed access to open access. The 1963 Ordnance Survey map shows the library footprint unchanged, but the adjacent plot to the east had been cleared and appears marked as a car park.

An extension was proposed in the mid-1960s. Work began in May 1968 and opened later that year, added to the northeast elevation and occupying much of the car park. The bell-shaped stone tablet was placed above the emergency exit of this extension in 1969.

As of September 2025, the library service remains in this building on Strathleven Place, though plans exist for it to become a publicly accessible community collections store and archive.