Miners' Institute

Miners' Institute

An inter-war Baroque style building constructed in red brick with pale freestone dressings and reinforced concrete, finished with slate roofs. The complex comprises a main auditorium range with entrance foyer and offices, a hipped-roofed wing to the north-west housing a former library, and a billiard room and assembly hall to the rear. The roof steps up over a fly tower behind.

The entrance front features a two-storeyed, five-bay facade with advanced outer bays stressed by rusticated pilasters. Each outer bay has a curved pediment with modillion cornice and stepped blocking course. The ground floor has a six-panelled door with overlight in a moulded and lugged architrave, and a round-arched window with radial glazing and moulded architrave with apron above. The central block displays coupled Doric columns to a three-bay entrance porch with beaded frieze to the architrave and balustraded parapet. The main paired panelled doors are flanked by narrow windows with latticed glazing. A central round-arched window is flanked by nine-pane sash windows, all set in lugged moulded architraves. A modillion cornice and balustraded parapet crown this section. Surmounting the steep pyramidal roof is a timber clock cupola with Ionic half-columns and ribbed domed cap.

The west return elevation of the auditorium range has a flat-roofed corridor at ground floor level with two and four-light small-paned mullioned and transomed windows with segmental heads and keyblocks. Buttresses above this corridor are articulated with four-light small-paned windows immediately below the eaves. Similar windows appear in the east elevation. The library block features a lean-to porch in the angle, with three 12-pane sash windows with moulded terracotta sills above. Its return elevation is a six-window range with similarly detailed 12-pane sashes on each floor. The billiard hall range to the rear has three round-arched windows with heavy radial glazing and terracotta heads at ground floor, and 12-pane sash windows with terracotta sills on moulded brackets above. Similar detailing appears in a four-window range to the rear elevation and east return.

Return flank bays flank each side, with plain brick buttressed side walls, an aisle, and a north extension flanking the fly tower to the rear. Brick piers and good area railings complete the exterior setting.

The interior contains a fine galleried auditorium with classical detailing including a shallow segmental vault with guilloche bands carried on Art-Deco corbel-pilasters and circular ventilators. Fluted surrounds with angled anthemions and key-pattern overdoors ornament the walls. The sinuous gallery front features elaborately swagged bosses, and the fly stage displays a rectangular proscenium with foliate surround. The gallery retains what appears to be original cinema seating with some Art-Deco detailing. Secondary halls occupy the rear, with an office block to the front accessed over a lateral entrance lobby featuring good doorcases, panelled doors, and plasterwork. Much of the original layout survives elsewhere, including the former games room, library, and billiard room in the rear wing.

The building was disused at the time of inspection in November 1986.