Loughborough has an ornate Edwardian public library. It is rather like the one in King's Lynn, though not as fantastical.
And, as far as I know, they don't need bouncers at the Loughborough one either.
The similarity of the two buildings is not so surprising, as both are Carnegie libraries. As Wikipedia explains:
A Carnegie library is a library built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. 2,509 Carnegie libraries were built between 1883 and 1929, including some belonging to public and university library systems. 1,689 were built in the United States, 660 in Britain and Ireland, 125 in Canada, and others in Australia, New Zealand, Serbia, the Caribbean, and Fiji. Few towns that requested a grant and agreed to his terms were refused.
When the last grant was made in 1919, there were 3,500 libraries in the United States, nearly half of them built with construction grants paid by Carnegie.
What a great building - it reminds me of the front of Leicester Railways Station
ReplyDeleteWe have a lovely one in Twickenham with stained glass panels on the internal doors reading "Newspaper Room", "Reference Room" and so on, plus a lovely set of panels on the staircase window commemorating the benefaction and with some uplifting sentiments. For one that will appeal see the date entry for 21.10.11 on this site
ReplyDeletehttp://www.arcadiantimes.co.uk/
Looks very similar to the Brentford library as well (which the council shamefully tried to close earlier this year).
ReplyDeleteI'll have to have a close look next time I'm there.