Old Borough Library, Stafford
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The Old Borough Library is a former
public library A public library is a library, most often a lending library, that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil servic ...
in
Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...
,
Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...
, England, opened in 1914. It is a Grade II
listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.


History and description

The building, partly funded by the charity of
Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...
, was designed by the Liverpool architects Briggs, Wolstenholme and Thornely in 1912.
Arnold Thornely Sir Arnold Thornely (7 October 1870 – 1 October 1953) was an English architect who practised in Liverpool. Although most of his designs were for buildings in Liverpool and the northwest of England, he is best known for the Parliament Buildin ...
was the architect of many public buildings in Liverpool, and also the Parliament Buildings in Stormont. The Mayor of Stafford, C. W. Miller, laid the foundation stone on 19 February 1913, and the library opened in 1914. There was a lending and reference library, and a reading room. It also housed the zoological and geological collection of
Clement Lindley Wragge Clement Lindley Wragge (18 September 185210 December 1922) was a meteorologist born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England, but moved to Oakamoor, Staffordshire as a child. He set up the Wragge Museum in Stafford following a trip around the wor ...
, transferred from Borough Hall in Stafford, which had since 1882 been the location of the lending and reference library. The building is on an island site known as The Green; it is at the junction of Newport Road, Bridge Street, Lichfield Road and Bailey Street, south of the town centre. The original building is V-shaped, with the main entrance, a semi-circular porch with two Tuscan columns and a semi-domed roof, at the flattened point at the north-west. An art gallery was opened in 1934. The building was extended by the borough architect in 1962.


Closure

The library closed in 1998, and was used as the Stafford Performing Arts Centre. The building was sold in 2011. It was given Grade II listed status (excluding the 1962 extension) in 2015.
The Victorian Society The Victorian Society is a UK charity and amenity society that campaigns to preserve and promote interest in Victorian and Edwardian architecture and heritage built between 1837 and 1914 in England and Wales. As a statutory consultee, by la ...
in 2016 placed it in their list of top ten endangered buildings. The Friends of the Carnegie Old Library Stafford launched a campaign to re-open the building as a community venue. In 2019, however, a proposal submitted to Stafford Borough Council, to convert it into ten apartments and a bar and restaurant, was approved."Green light given for town’s former library to become apartments and bar/restaurant"
''
Express & Star The ''Express & Star'' is a regional evening newspaper in Britain. Founded in 1889, it is based in Wolverhampton, England, and covers the West Midlands county and Staffordshire. Currently edited by Martin Wright, the ''Express & Star'' publis ...
'', 21 October 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2023.


See also

* Listed buildings in Stafford (Outer Area)


References


External links

{{commons category-inline Carnegie libraries in England Grade II listed library buildings Grade II listed buildings in Staffordshire Libraries in Staffordshire Library buildings completed in 1914 Former library buildings in England Buildings and structures in Stafford