Summary
Former public library built in neo-Baroque style in 1905. Designed by Alfred Cox and funded The Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
Reasons for Designation
The former Wakefield Carnegie library is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* for its well-preserved and well-detailed neo-Baroque exterior, which continues around two elevations;
* the more eclectic elevation to Mulberry Row incorporates a well-detailed Modernist extension of 1935 that provides a striking contrast with the flanking 1905 Vernacular Revival wings;
* the notable survival of the internal plan form, along with good-quality original features and detailing.
Historic interest:
* as one of the earliest libraries in England funded by Andrew Carnegie;
* as an example of the work of Alfred Cox, an early C20 architect who designed a number of libraries and whose approach to library planning was published in the national architectural press.
History
In 1904, the Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) donated £8000 to build a public library in Wakefield; one of the first Carnegie libraries built in England. It was designed by Alfred Cox of Trimmell, Cox and Company of Woldingham, Surrey following a competition attracting around 80 entries. The foundation stone was laid on 15 February 1905 and it was opened by Carnegie on 2 June 1906. The builder was Bagnall Brothers of Wakefield.
Cox’s design for Wakefield library was published in Building News on 13 May 1904. A plan details the rooms flanking the central entrance as the news room and the magazine room, the main room to the centre as the lending library, with the reference library room to the east and the women and children's reading room to the west. The two cottage-like structures fronting onto Mulberry Way were for offices and staff use; that to the west forming a two-bedroom caretaker’s cottage. Cox subsequently gave a paper to the Architectural Association (published in The Builder, 14 January 1905) expounding his design principals for libraries.
In 1935 the lending library was extended with a brick-built two-storey addition between the two cottage-like rear elevations designed by Percy Morris Architects; the lower ground floor used for book storage. In 1939 a junior library was added as an extension along the eastern side, designed by S Houlton Architects. Wakefield Library was moved to a new building in 2009, at which time the old library building was converted and slightly extended to form part of the adjacent Art House in 2015, to be used mainly as artist studios and exhibition space. Prior to conversion, a Building Recording survey was carried out by the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service.
Cox’s design of the principal elevation is neo-Baroque, inspired by Sir Christopher Wren, the rear being late-C17 vernacular. The 1935 rear extension is well detailed, the Modernist design providing an interesting contrast with the flanking vernacular domestic-style elevations. The northern elevation of the 1939 extension blends with the original build using matching materials but with simplified detailing. Its southern elevation is now covered by a highly-glazed, partly timber-clad extension built about 2014.
Details
Former library, 1905, by Alfred Cox, funded by Andrew Carnegie. Extended to the rear in 1935 and to the eastern side in 1939. Converted and extended as exhibition space and studios in 2015 as part of The Art House attached to the eastern side of the 1939 extension.
MATERIALS: Crosland Moor ashlar stonework to northern and western elevations, these having concealed guttering and decorative cast iron downpipes. The 1905 southern elevations are roughcast rendered. The 1935 extension is built of thin red and brown bricks with stone bandings. Roofing to the 1905 building is steeply pitched with slate laid to diminishing courses. Extensions are flat-roofed with skylights.
PLAN: the 1905 building is broadly symmetrical. The main entrance hall is accessed from Drury Lane on the northern side and provides access to the flanking newspaper and magazine reading rooms that extend as wings to either side, as well as to the large central room which formed the lending library, extended southwards in 1935. This is flanked by cross wings containing two further reading rooms, the wings terminating to the rear with two-storey staff facilities with lower ground floors facing Mulberry Way, that to the west originally being a self-contained two-bedroom cottage. The 1939 extension, a further reading room extending along the eastern side, has its own entrance on Drury Lane.
EXTERIOR:
DRURY LANE (NORTH) ELEVATION: the 1905 building has a tall central entrance bay with a gabled attic storey and cupola, flanked by four-bay, single storey wings. Detailing is Neo-Baroque. The 1939 extension to the east is of three bays with a central entrance and simpler detailing. The whole elevation has a plinth and a moulded eaves cornice concealing guttering. Windows are small-paned and leaded.
The tall 1905 entrance bay is framed by rusticated engaged columns with panelled bases, supporting an entablature with an ornamented pulvinated frieze. The gable above is raised and coped and has a two-light mullioned attic window with a hood, architrave, and panelled apron. Rising from the centre of the roof is an ornate timber cupola with a leaded ogee cap and an iron weathervane. The double-doored entrance is set in a surround with engaged columns supporting an entablature with a very large cornice. Above, there is a deeply-set semi-circular fanlight in a rusticated surround with a bold ornamented cartouche rising above as a keystone.
The flanking wings each have a pair of large round-headed windows which project through the eaves, topped by raised coping that forms rounded hoods over each window. These windows have rusticated aprons incorporating raised panels and are set in concave-moulded surrounds with keystones featuring carved heads. Separating the windows is a downpipe with an ornate rainwater head inscribed '1905'. Either side of the paired windows are keyed oculus windows: circular windows with moulded surrounds featuring four keystones.
The 1939 addition to the east is symmetrical with a central, round-headed entrance with a keystoned architrave providing access to an internal porch. This entrance bay breaks forward slightly and has a shallow pediment. The flanking bays each have a single, narrow, square-headed window set in a keystoned architrave. Roofing is concealed by a parapet.
WESTERN SIDE ELEVATION: the falling ground surface down to Mulberry Way is accommodated by a retaining wall in engineering bricks topped by a stone balustrade containing a raised paved area. The building’s elevation fronting onto this paving consists of a central range of three bays flanked by gable ends, the Neo-Baroque detailing continued from the front, but simplified. The windows to the central section are square-headed with mullions and transoms and leaded lights. The eastern gable is coped and is framed by pilasters rising from the plinth. There is a single, large, round-headed window detailed like those to the front elevation. Set into the eastern pilaster is the building’s foundation stone. The western gable is plainer, with three domestic-scaled square-headed windows each divided into two lights with a transom.
MULBERRY WAY ELEVATION: to the centre is the 1935 extension. This is flat roofed and of two storeys, built of slim red and brown bricks. It has a Modernist horizontal emphasis with stone cill and lintel bands to each floor and a stone coped parapet. The window openings are moulded into these bands, the elevation being symmetrical with window openings divided into separate lights in the pattern three, two, four, two, three, the central four lights being omitted from the ground floor, the first- floor windows being leaded.
The elevations flanking the 1935 extension are matching and part of the original 1905 building but are domestic in appearance in C17 vernacular revival style, that to the west actually being formerly accommodation for a member of staff. These elevations are roughcast rendered, both being of two storeys and three bays with central, round-headed doorways, leaded twin-light casement windows and with tall, central, stone ashlar chimney stacks. The cottage to the west has an additional leaded light at lower ground floor level and a blue Wakefield Civic Society plaque to John Goodchild, archivist and historian (1935 to 2017). It is further enhanced by an elaboration to its chimney stack: a raised panel set below a segmental open-based pediment.
The highly glazed extension on the Mulberry Way side of the 1939 extension was added about 2015.
INTERIOR: the base of the tall entry bay on Drury Lane forms a domed entrance hall with a simple plaster cornice, central lantern and walls tiled up to dado level in a glazed green and blue floral pattern. A bronze plaque reads CITY OF WAKEFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARY, THIS LIBRARY WAS BUILT BY MR ANDREW CARNEGIE AND PRESENTED BY HIM TO THE CORPORATION FOR THE USE OF THE INHABITANTS OF THIS CITY, MAY 1906. The internal porch has a black and white tiled floor and cast iron, Art Deco internal security gates. Three large rooms lead off this hall.
The flanking reading rooms (originally for newspapers and magazines) have shallow barrel-vaulted ceilings decorated with bands of roses and vines in low-relief plasterwork. Decorative plasterwork converges at the square column heads between each of the large windows. The walls have green glazed tiles to dado level and parquet flooring. As part of the 2015 conversion, freestanding ‘pod’ style workspaces forming artist’s studios were added.
The central lending library space is accessed from the entrance hall via glazed double doors retaining Art Nouveau handles, the doors set between side lights and below a semi-circular fanlight. Inside the room is a second round-headed arch articulated by Doric columns. Two timber notice boards flank the entrance, and a plaster picture rail runs around the room above floral green and blue glazed tiles to dado rail. The room contains cast-iron radiators. Original 12-pane glazed double doors with fielded panels survive and most remain in use, although several have been blocked shut. The room is open to roof with skylights set in the curved plaster ceiling which also features exposed timber roof trusses. Two white plaster roses flank a fleur-de-lis shield on the west wall. A small number of original bookshelves survive around the edges of the room. Bookcases from the central space have been replaced with more freestanding ‘pod’ workspaces. This space is open to the 1935 extension which retains parquet flooring and book shelving as well as an Art Deco clock set above a book lift that links to the former lower-ground book store, this being a rare surviving feature once common to early C20 libraries. The ceiling retains a large central skylight with diamond-paned armature and leaded lights.
The reading rooms flanking the central room retain decorative barrel-vaulted ceilings. The reading room to the east also retains blue-grey glazed tiles to dado level and is open to the 1939 extension on the eastern side, the interior of which has been altered. The former staff accommodation has also been altered but was more simply detailed. The lower ground floor still retains a number of historic doors.
