Central Library

CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed building
List Entry Number:
1317906
Date first listed:
07-Jun-1971
Statutory Address:
CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE
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Location

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Date:
2002-04-20
Reference:
IOE01/06809/13
Rights:
© Mr Peter Hyde. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed building
List Entry Number:
1317906
Date first listed:
07-Jun-1971
Statutory Address 1:
CENTRAL LIBRARY, QUEENS SQUARE

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

Ordnance survey map of Central Library

Map

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© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. Use of this mapping is subject to Terms and Conditions.

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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