Carnegie Building

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-and-one-storey-over-basement red-brick former Carnegie library, now office, in the Tudoresque style; built c.1905 to designs by Graeme-Watt & Tulloch and located on the north side of Donegall Road at Roseland Place, southwest of Belfast city centre. Gabled and on an L-shaped plan with oblique single-storey porch to re-entrant angle; two and single-storey wing to northwest; canted bays to front and southeast.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and leaded valleys; raised stone verges with kneelers surmounted by ball finials; octagonal vented cupola to ridgeline surmounted by ball finial and weathervane; tall red-brick chimneystack with sandstone dressings and terracotta pot. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods with hoppers and square downpipes on projecting sandstone eaves course. Walling is Flemish-bonded red-brick with sandstone dressings, moulded base course and ashlar platband to sill levels. Windows are mullioned and transomed in various styles with leaded and clear glass.

L-shaped block faces southwest; right bay is three bipartite transomed and mullioned windows wide to first floor (all gabled); ground floor has canted bay at right and tripartite mullioned window at left. Projecting gabled bay to left has a tripartite stepped stairwell window at right; two pairs of windows at left and three windows at ground floor; southeast elevation has a mullioned window at left. Porch to re-entrant angle is accessed by three stone steps; top step has terracotta and cream mosaic tiles. Porch contains double-leaf nine-panelled timber door with equilateral-headed transom light in sandstone ashlar surround having ornately carved panels to spandrels; framed by octagonal brick columns surmounted by decorative pierced sandstone parapet. Masonry steps to lower ground level accessed to left side of porch; enclosed by decorative wrought-iron railings with latch gate.

The northwest elevation is abutted by the two-and-single-storey wing; two-storey central gabled block has two windows to ground floor; southwest and northeast elevations are three sets of triple mullioned windows wide to first floor and are abutted at ground floor by a single-storey castellated block (also three sets of triple mullioned windows wide);

The northeast (rear) elevation is divided generally into four sections, each topped by a gable; that to right is wide and has two openings to first and ground floor. Otherwise, each section has a single opening to each floor, including timber-sheeted entrance doors alternate with windows to ground floor. Extended to right by return. There is a timber-sheeted and glazed door to centre at lower ground level.

The southeast gable has parapetted canted bay to ground floor with paired mullioned windows, surmounted by corbel cornice and a brick parapet. Large fifteen-paned transomed and mullioned window to first floor with inscribed sandstone panels reading “Belfast Public Library” to top; “Carnegie Branch” to left and “Donegall Road” to right. Platbands frame a small rectangular apex opening.

Setting:

Corner-sited between Roseland Place and Utility Street at Donegall Road. City Hospital Train Station and a terrace of late twentieth-century two-storey houses to south. Roseland Place to north has a terrace of mid-twentieth-century two-storey houses and a red-brick Church Hall. Roseland Place ends in a high masonry wall and steel gates which enclose a large cleared building site, to west of the former library, also accessed via Utility Street. Utility Street is partially cobbled. Steps from public footpath to porch; area to either side of porch enclosed by decorative wrought-iron railings.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Flemish-bonded red-brick
Windows: Mullioned and transomed leaded and clear glass
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The Carnegie Library, Donegall Road, was built between 1907 and 1909 to designs by Graeme Watt & Tulloch. The firm, competition winners in 1905, were appointed architects for three Carnegie libraries in Belfast. Oldpark Road and Donegall Road were built in a similar Tudoresque style, while Falls Road, on a larger site, has a neo-classical character. (Larmour)

In February 1905, the Irish Builder announced that Graeme-Watt & Tulloch were the winners of a competition, limited to local architects, to build three Carnegie Branch Libraries in Belfast. The judging was carried out by Sir Thomas Drew who found Graeme, Watt & Tulloch’s plans to be ‘far and away the best’ and commented on the ‘lack of knowledge of library requirements displayed by many of the competitors’. The firm was thought to have made best use of what was in the case of Donegall Road, a very ‘awkward’ site. (Irish Builder) The building first appears on the 1931 edition of the OS map and enters valuation records in 1908 as a ‘Carnegie Free Library’ valued at £250. (Annual Revisions) The materials used for the building were red brick with Mountcharles stone dressings, string courses and copings. (Grimes)

Between 1897 and 1913 Andrew Carnegie promised over £170,000 to pay for the building of about 80 libraries in Ireland. Not all were built, some have been destroyed and sixty-two have survived to the present day. (Grimes)

Andrew Carnegie spent his early life in Scotland but when his family’s income from hand loom weaving began to fall with the introduction of mechanisation, they emigrated to America. As a boy in Pittsburgh, Carnegie benefited from a library opened by a local philanthropist and was convinced that ‘there was no use to which money could be applied so productive of good to boys and girls’ as the founding of public libraries. Later in life, Carnegie became extremely wealthy, firstly manufacturing railways and locomotives and later extending his interests into steel production. In 1881 he made his first gift of a public library to his home town of Dunfermline and in 1901 having sold his company he donated over $5 million to New York City for the construction of 65 branch libraries. In all he financed around 2,500 libraries in 10 countries, the large majority of these in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Ireland. Carnegie made some donations for other purposes, such as education, research and welfare but in Ireland he insisted that the provision he made was solely for libraries, although he did provide church organs. Eight of the surviving 62 Carnegie libraries are in Northern Ireland (Downpatrick has not survived). (Grimes)

Belfast Corporation had built a Central Library in 1888 under the provisions of the Libraries Act and by the turn into the twentieth century were considering the provision of branch libraries. A rise in the library rate was recommended in order to provide four branch libraries in north, south, east and west. The first purpose-built branch library opened in Ballymacarrett in 1903, chosen because of its high population density. By the time Ballymacarrett opened the library committee had applied to Carnegie for a grant to build the remaining three branch libraries. Belfast’s chief librarian, G H Elliott, visited Carnegie and his adviser Dr Hew Morrison several times before Carnegie granted £15,000 in 1902. Carnegie made his offer conditional on the raising of the library rate to pay for the maintenance of the new buildings and three sites had to be provided by the city. A free site in Donegall Road was offered by A W Vance and some adjacent land was purchased for £600, the money being obtained from the Corporation Gas Committee. It was not until 1905 that the Corporation could report to Carnegie that they had obtained three sites, suitable land being much in demand. (Grimes)

Donegall Road is the largest of the three Carnegie libraries, when account is taken of the basement, and was built by contractors Messrs Robert Corry Ltd at a cost of £4,930. The building opened to the public on 5th March 1909, the last of the three to be opened. The design makes skilful use of the irregular site, the ‘tudor manor house’ style lending itself to the asymmetric nature of the plot. The original ground floor plan had a newsroom at the front provided with light by the bay windows and the lending library to the rear. On the first floor was a magazine room and rooms for ladies and ‘juveniles’. (Grimes)

The building is no longer in use as a library, having been converted for use as offices to designs by Andrew Nesbitt Architects.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/61/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/61/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/61/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1901-2
4. PRONI OS/6/1/61/6 – Sixth Edition OS Map 1931
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/43/D/1-22 – Annual Revisions (1862-1930)
6. Irish Builder, Vol 47, 11th February 1905, p.81
7. Irish Builder, Vol 47, 25th February 1905, p.125
8. Irish Builder, Vol 47, 2nd December 1905, p.861
9. Irish Builder, Vol 51, 9th January 1909, p.18
10. Irish Builder, Vol 51, 20th March 1909, p.177

Secondary Sources

1. Grimes, Brendan “Irish Carnegie Libraries, A Catalogue and Architectural History” Dublin, Irish Academic Press, 1998
2. Larmour, Paul “Belfast – An Illustrated Architectural Guide” Belfast: Friar’s Bush press, 1987
3. www.dia.ie – Dictionary of Irish Architects online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
U. Historic Associations
Z. Rarity
V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

A two-and-one-storey-over-basement red-brick former Carnegie library in the Tudoresque style; built c.1905 to designs by Graeme-Watt & Tulloch and located on the north side of Donegall Road at Roseland Place, southwest of Belfast city centre. A fine example of the type built in Northern Ireland since the late-nineteenth century, and one of three by architects Graeme-Watt & Tulloch. Restored in recent years and converted for use as a modern business and design studio, interventions have been largely sympathetic. Architectural fabric and late-Victorian detailing are largely intact and the building retains much of its original character despite the change in use. Of significant historical and architectural interest, the former library continues to make a important contribution creating an element of architectural distinction and interest within the local community.
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