Tyldesley Public Library

Summary

A Carnegie library of 1909 by Arthur John Hope of Bradshaw Gass and Hope, in Jacobean Renaissance style of red Ruabon brick with red sandstone dressings.

Reasons for Designation

Tyldesley Public Library, constructed in 1909, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a good example of a small-scale library provided with support from the Carnegie foundation;
* for its strong architectural composition and good-quality external detailing (much in carved sandstone), and good interior planning;
* unusually for a library of this date it survives well externally and internally, retaining much of its plan form and numerous interior features of interest, such as glazed timber screens, decorative leaded windows, terrazzo staircase, and bronze dedication plaque.

History

Tyldesley Public Library was opened on 18 December 1909. It replaced the Temperance and Education Hall which had been built on the site in 1851, for the Mechanics’ Institute. As demand for a public library grew, the old building was deemed unsuitable, and an application was made to the Carnegie fund. £4,000 was granted in 1906, and the site donated (a stipulation of Carnegie funding for library buildings) by Rev CTB Ormerod. Andrew Carnegie being otherwise engaged, the building was opened by local magistrate and industrialist Charles Eckersley, who was presented with a golden key by Arthur John Hope of the designers’ firm, Bradshaw and Gass.

The library was among the first wave of Carnegie libraries built in England (the first in England was in Keighley, founded in 1902 and opened in 1904). A letter from Carnegie wishing success and happiness to both the library and the people of Tyldesley was read aloud at the opening ceremony and was greeted with much applause.

The library had some late-C20 alterations including removing the reading desks and part of the glazed screens to open out the reading room to interconnect with the lecture hall, replacement of light fittings, re-roofing over the skylight of the ground-floor lecture hall (with modern flat roof and outer skylight), and the replacement of the original windows in timber double-glazing to the original glazing pattern. A historic photo suggests however that the top-centre panes at either side of the reading room screen were always plain-glazed and not leaded like the other panes. The library was closed in 2020 and plans were made to relocate library services to the town hall, but these were reversed.

The Public Libraries Act of 1850 had allowed municipal boroughs of over 10,000 inhabitants in England to fund library buildings and staff from a half-penny rate. This provision was gradually expanded but not widely taken up even after 77 new libraries were opened during Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. While not the first benefactor of multiple libraries in England, Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) was by far the most prolific. Born in Dunfermline, he was an iron and steel magnate who was passionate about the availability of free libraries, funding approximately 3,000 libraries during his lifetime and beyond, mainly in the USA and Canada, the United Kingdom and Ireland, but also across the globe.

Arthur John Hope joined the architectural partnership Bradshaw and Gass in 1892, and became a partner in 1902. Hope, who had studied civil engineering, was never a full member of the RIBA, which might explain why the firm sometimes called itself Bradshaw and Gass even after Hope was made partner. The firm designed many listed buildings, including a Carnegie library in Stockport, and the nearby Leigh Spinners’ Mill.

Details

A Carnegie library of 1909 by Arthur John Hope of Bradshaw Gass and Hope.

MATERIALS: Ruabon brick, Runcorn red sandstone dressings, red clay tile roof, timber windows, partial steel framing, concrete floors.

PLAN: two-storeyed L-plan, with single-storey lecture hall in the angle and three-storey administrative range to its rear.

EXTERIOR: designed in Jacobean Renaissance style and occupying a corner site close to the market square at the centre of Tyldesley Town Centre Conservation Area, the building faces east onto Stanley Street.

The front facade is of two storeys plus an attic, and three bays wide with a prominent moulded and billeted cornice, ashlar ground floor and rusticated plinth (including the blind basement at the right where the ground level falls). The bays are defined by giant brick pilasters. The pilasters continue in stone above the cornice, against the brick parapet, which has a central attic flanked by consoles, with Diocletian window. Behind is the tall, hipped roof of the front range.

The first-floor windows have stone surrounds with aprons below, and the ground-floor windows have deep-moulded arched heads with console keystones. The upper halves of the ground-floor windows have radiating glazing bars from a central roundel. The central entrance is stepped, and has Gibbsian blocked columns to a segmental open pediment above a lozenge-glazing-bar fanlight. Original iron gates enclose the porch, which has a glazed timber screen and doors. Just visible at the left is a narrow, splayed corner bay with similar first-floor window, and ground-floor window with no arch.

The south facade has another bay matching the front, with a further five bays of brick walling in Flemish Garden Wall bond, with stone sill band, and ground-floor windows matching the front but with brick arches and keystones. The cast-iron ogee eaves gutter is carried on wrought-iron stays. The left bay continues up as a small tower (probably for a water tank).

The west (rear) wall largely comprises the gabled rear of the main range, with short bay to the left (at the rear of the lecture hall). This facade is of common brick, the main range blind apart from a large window in the gable, with fair-faced arch and apron, and fair-faced chimney stack above. The window is flanked by buff sandstone foundation stones of the former Mechanics’ Institute building, inscribed ‘TEMPERANCE/ &/ EDUCATION/ HALL’ (now badly worn on its right hand edge), and (in cursive lettering) ‘ERECTED/ 1851’. The bay to the left has three low floors of plain windows to offices and the rear stair, with stone sills.

The north wall is largely obscured by adjoining buildings.

INTERIOR: the floor-plan survives well, with reading room to the left of the entrance, central lobby, and stairwell to the right, and barrel-vaulted halls to the rear of the stair and above the reading room.

The interior retains leaded and decoratively-glazed windows or screens in the reading room (including Tyldesley’s coat of arms), office range, skylight to the downstairs lecture hall, and stairwell. The office space also retains an issue hatch opening to the space beyond the reading room, and separate rear staircase.

The main stairwell hosts a bronze plaque commemorating the donations of the site and the building funds by the benefactors, the opening by Charles Eckersley, members of the library committee of the local council, and the designers. The original terrazzo main stair survives with its balustrade, although the balustrade has been truncated on the landing by a later partition.

Decorative timber and plaster detailing also survives to varying degrees throughout, although the plaster ceiling of the front first-floor room has fallen and some other features are (in 2023) partially concealed by later finishes. The basement is largely devoid of features of interest.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 17 July 2023 to amend details in the description

Sources

Books and journals
. in Building News, (28 Jan 1910), 149
Pollard, R, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West, (2006), 596
Tyldesley Public Library Opening Ceremony in Leigh Chronicle, (23 Dec 1909), 2

Websites
Gazetteer of Carnegie libraries, accessed 27/03/23 from https://carnegielibrariesofbritain.com/
Information on the architects from the Dictionary of Scottish Architects, accessed 27/03/23 from https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=200110

End of official list entry

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