Description

OLDHAM

SD9204NE UNION STREET
780-1/6/82 (South side)
Library and Art Gallery

GV II

Library and Art Gallery. 1883 with additions of 1894.
Rusticated rubble, coursed and squared in small blocks. Red
plain tiled roof with ridge cresting.
High 2 storeys, symmetrically planned with central entrance
gable and flanking blocks, each of 3 bays. Steps up to
Romanesque style entrance with squat shafts carrying round
arch, and low relief in tympanum. Shallow oriel with leaded
trefoiled lights, city arms and inscription in frieze above.
Gable coping surmounted by statue.
Gable returns are linked to flanking blocks by full-height
segmental bays in the angles with 2-light windows on each
floor. Flanking blocks each of 3 windows, with tall
segmentally-arched mullioned and transomed ground floor
windows with stained glass in lower panes. Upper windows are
trefoiled mullioned and transomed lights, and the central
window cuts into gabled dormer with rose window. The gable of
the dormer is carried on stumpy shafts. End wall stacks.
Gable returns each have central stack corbelled out over first
floor with rose windows to each side of it.
Behind this frontage entrance block, 2 parallel rear wings
comprise main galleries. High ground floor divided by
buttresses into 6 bays each with segmentally-arched window,
then high relief busts of artists and literary figures beneath
timber clerestory which has overhanging eaves carried on
paired timber shafts.
Lower 3-bay block beyond has eastern entrance in gabled porch,
inscribed "Lecture Hall" over doorway.
Cast-iron railings with stone plinth wall and terminal piers
flanking entrance steps carrying cast-iron globe lamps.

Listing NGR: SD9287104889

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26571505

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

• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Hampshire: Winchester and the North (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)