Description

ISLINGTON

TQ3185SW FIELDWAY CRESCENT
635-1/37/395 (North East side)
29/09/72 Central Library
(Formerly Listed as:
HOLLOWAY ROAD
Public Library)

II

Public Library. Dated 1906 on the foundation stone and
elsewhere, altered and enlarged to Fieldway Crescent front in
1973-6. By Henry T. Hare. The principal front of Hare's
building faces Holloway Road, and is faced in Portland stone,
and there is a 1906 wing in Fieldway Crescent of red brick set
in English bond with stone dressings; roof of slate so far as
visible. Two storeys over basement; the first floor not
windowed on Holloway Road, but the front reads as five bays,
the outer bays projecting slightly. Deep single-storey porch
of rusticated stone to right-hand bay with engaged Roman Doric
columns carrying a segmental open pediment with datestone and
floral drops in the tympanum; flat-arched entrance with double
keystones; wrought iron gates to entrance and wrought iron
grille to left return; dated lead rainwater head in angle of
porch and principal front. The principal front has a base of
ashlar, the rest decorated with banded rustication; three
window bays to centre set in round, hollow-chamfered arches,
the windows flat-arched and flanked by engaged Ionic columns
carrying entablature with double keystone and broken pediment
enclosing a cartouche; the windows have original slim wooden
mullions and transoms with leaded glazing; rising out of each
cartouche, a scrolled bracket each carrying a different
emblematic female head; circular niches with architraves
between the brackets and linked to them by festoons; fascia
over all three windows lettered 'ISLINGTON CENTRAL LIBRARY'.
The outer bays have, to the right, the porch and an aedicular
niche with a statue of Bacon to the first floor, and, to the
left, the foundation stone with small flat-arched window
above, and first-floor niche with a statue of Spenser.
Pulvinated frieze to the outer bays; mutule cornice,
balustrade to central bays, stepped parapet with wreathed
ornament to outer bays.
The return of the principal facade to Fieldway Crescent has a
tripartite window to the ground floor with Ionic pilasters and
engaged Ionic columns carrying entablature and central
segmental pediment; and a round-arched first-floor window with
eared architrave, keystone, and scrolled outer mouldings; a
lower, two-storey pedimented wing projects to the left with
flat-arched entrance and first-floor flat-arched window under
an open segmental pediment. Rear wing of two storeys and
four-window range stepped back in Fieldway Crescent:
flat-arched windows, stone dressings, moulded stone eaves
cornice and bracketed gutters.
INTERIOR: : the block facing into Holloway Road has been
largely gutted internally; but the rear wing retains the large
former reading room on the ground floor with tall paired
windows to the south-west separated by engaged Doric columns,
a four-light window to the south-east similarly treated, and a
coffered ceiling; above this the former reference library with
original panelling incorporating bookcases in six bays,
eccentrically large scrolled brackets rising from piers to
support entablature to panelled and barrel-vaulted ceiling;
segmental sidelights, rooflights and circular windows at
either end with archivolt, foliage drops and festoons.

Listing NGR: TQ3134385060

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Islington Central Library official website
• Wikidata Q26580587

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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