Barry Municipal Buildings and Library

The Barry Municipal Buildings and Library is an Edwardian Baroque building, constructed in red brick with bathstone dressings and a channelled bathstone ground floor, set on a plinth of local stone. It comprises a library block (to the right), a clock tower, and a block of public offices (to the left), with nine windows to the library, one bay to the tower, and seven windows to the offices. The building has two storeys and an attic, with a basement and area railings to the public offices.

The library features a prominent bathstone frontispiece with giant Ionic columns. The attic has an open pediment with an oculus, and four windows. Above the first-floor central tripartite window is an open pediment, with keyblocked sash windows on either side. The ground floor has a central round-headed doorway flanked by round-headed windows; the outer bays of the library block have three keyblocked windows to the first floor, and three round-headed windows to the ground floor, with the first bay containing a doorway with a keyblock forming a pediment.

The clock tower is topped with a copper dome featuring louvres and has diagonal buttresses. The cornice is above the clock faces and a window is set within an aedicule on the first floor, with a round arched window on the ground floor.

The central bay of the public offices is distinguished by a frontispiece featuring giant paired Ionic columns and an open segmental pediment, framing a Venetian window on the first floor, its central light surmounted by a cartouche in full relief depicting female figures personifying Justice. Steps lead up to a doorway with rusticated Ionic columns and a segmental pediment inscribed “Public Offices". Stone lions with cartouches between their paws sit on pedestals that project forward on either side of the steps. The outer bays of the offices block mirror the library’s design, with three keyblocked windows to the first floor and three round-headed windows to the ground floor.

The left-hand side elevation is of five bays. The first two bays are articulated similarly to the flanking wings of the front elevation, while the remaining three bays feature a frontispiece with a pediment, giant Ionic pilasters, two windows to the central bay, and single windows to the outer bays. The ground floor has arched windows, including a broader central window. The tympanum of the pediment displays carved relief featuring a central cartouche inscribed “BTC,” female figures, and miniature ships.

The interior is said to retain a first-floor committee room.