Description

LICHFIELD

SK1109NW BIRD STREET
1094-1/4/38 (West side)
11/02/93 Former Public Library and Art
Gallery and attached balustrades

GV II

Public library and museum. 1857-9. By Bidlake and Lovatt.
Brick with buff brick facades, ashlar dressings; parapeted
roof. Right-angle plan with inset octagonal entrance tower to
angle to left. Renaissance style.
2 storeys with basement; 3-window range. Panelled brick plinth
over basement; rusticated end piers and cornice to impost
level and cornice over ground floor; top dentilled brick
frieze and modillioned ashlar cornice. Entrance tower has
rusticated piers and entablature to ground floor; high plinth
and entablature to 1st floor, and cupola with dentilled
cornice and domical vault with wind vane.
Round-headed entrance has tall key to plain fanlight over C20
door; flanking round-headed windows with brick archivolts and
ashlar keys; plinth has square ashlar plaque inscribed: FREE/
LIBRARY/ AND/ MUSEUM, flanking roundels; 1st floor has 3
round-headed windows; round-headed openings to cupola.
3-window range has windows with rubbed brick flat arches and
8-pane sashes with 2 ashlar antae with lotus capitals, tympana
above have archivolts and keys; 1st floor has blind arcading
of 3 pairs of round arches with ashlar colonnettes; two C20
buttresses with continuations of cornices.
Left return facing Museum Gardens is 6-window range, the
windows grouped in pairs with C20 buttresses between. Ashlar
statue of sailor with HMS POWERFUL to his hat band on corbel
to right end; said to date from the Boer War, origin unknown.
Rear is simpler, with lean-to projection with blocked wide
segmental-headed entrance and flanking niches. Right return is
plain, with C20 addition to rear. Entrance tower flanked by
low brick walls and ashlar balustrading of 4-centred arches,
piers with chamfered angles, similar in style to those to
causeway (qv).
INTERIOR: geometrical stair with slender iron balusters and
wreathed handrail; top-lit 1st floor.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Staffordshire: London:
1974-: P.192; Clayton H: Cathedral City: Lichfield: 1977-:
P.102-5).

Listing NGR: SK1140909629

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26504639

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)