Buckley Town Council Offices and Library

The Buckley Town Council Offices and Library are purpose-built buildings constructed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, designed in a domestic style incorporating Arts and Crafts influences. A late 20th-century flat-roofed link structure now joins the two buildings. Both are built of local red brick with stone dressings.

The Council Offices are a balanced, asymmetrical building featuring a first-floor brick dentil course. The façade is dominated by an advanced left bay with buttresses to the ground floor and a pilaster with finials breaking the eaves line above. A large painted panel displaying “Buckley Town Council,” a crest, and the date 1901 is positioned centrally (formerly “Buckley Urban District Town Council,” with the words “Urban District” painted out following the 1974 Local Government Reorganisation). A central doorway is sheltered by a segmentally pedimented canopy, with transom and mullion windows to the ground floor, the left window being larger than the right. A small, leaded-pane window is situated on the first floor to the right. The building has a hipped slate roof and two tall brick chimney stacks run along the ridge. The dentil course extends to the left gable. To the rear is the Town Council chamber, with a sweeping slate roof set lower and featuring three tall gable-end windows and two large windows to the side.

The Library, situated to the right of the Council Offices, is a symmetrical five-bay structure with a continuous first-floor brick dentil course. An advanced, gabled central entrance bay is topped with finials to the coped gable, and features a wide doorway to the ground floor and an arched window on the first floor, both with regularly spaced raised stone voussoirs. A stone balcony, supported by stone brackets and with cast iron railings, sits above the doorway; it holds a painted metal panel inscribed “Public Library and Swimming Pool” and dated “AD 1902.” The balcony supports a large clock displaying the painted lettering “Buckley Silver Jubilee, 1910-1935” (recently restored). The ground floor has arched windows with voussoirs, while the first floor features rectangular small-pane leaded windows. Narrow arched windows with keystones are found on the returns of the entrance bay. A hipped slate roof with brick end stacks tops the building, the right-hand stack being corbelled. Stone dedication plaques are set within the front wall at a low level, commemorating the support of Andrew Carnegie and Messers Griffiths of Chester.

Significant contemporary detailing remains within the Council Offices, including the central entrance plan, original doors, glazed dado tiling, skirtings, and other internal features. The main council chamber appears to have remained entirely intact. The interior of the Library was not inspected.