Central Library
CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1317906
- Date first listed:
- 07-Jun-1971
- List Entry Name:
- Central Library
- Statutory Address:
- CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2002-04-20
- Reference:
- IOE01/06809/13
- Rights:
- © Mr Peter Hyde. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1317906
- Date first listed:
- 07-Jun-1971
- List Entry Name:
- Central Library
- Statutory Address 1:
- CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Lancashire
- District:
- Rossendale (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- SD 81044 22733
Details
SD 82 SW RAWTENSTALL QUEEN'S SQUARE
14/227 Central Library 7.6.1971 GV II
Public Library, 1906, by Crouch, Butler & Savage of Birmingham (Pevsner). Red brick with rock-faced sandstone facade, steeply-pitched slate roofs with ridge ventilators. L-shaped plan on corner site: 2 wings built at reflex angle, hinged on a drum with a lantern, with a segmental reading hall in the angle to the rear. Two storeys with single-storey reading hall. Classical style with some baroque detail: principally the entrance front at the centre of the 3/4-cylindrical corner facade, which has a one-bay 2-storey ashlar facing incorporating a porch of free Ionic columns distyle in antis, frieze lettered PUBLIC LIBRARY, dentilled cornice; at 1st floor a sashed window with architrave and iron mock-balcony in a segmental-headed panel flanked by ornamemted panelled pilasters, the whole under a prominent dentilled cornice arched over the centre; and set back, a balustraded drum carrying an octagonal lantern with domed roof and finial. Each side of the entrance bay are 3 sashed windows on each floor, all with glazing bars, (the upper with smaller 6-pane upper leaf). Receding wings have round-headed windows at ground floor rectangular at 1st floor. Rear: red brick, the reading hall with very tall windows, wings with coupled windows at 1st floor, and drum with 3 tall stairlights. Lantern has rectangular windows. Interior: ground floor is one vessel with Ionic colonnades (foliated bands to the columns, and foliated beams in the wings); Art Nouveau balustrade to staircase in drum.
Listing NGR: SD8104422733
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 185806
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: South Lancashire, (1969)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 04-Jun-2026 at 04:21:28.
Download a full scale map (PDF)© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900.© British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Limited 2026. All rights reserved. Licence number 102006.006.
End of official list entry