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Summary

Description

Arthur Clyne, 1903. Single storey and basement, 4-bay, rectangular-plan civic gothic with Jacobean detailing library. Tooled, coursed granite ashlar finely finished to margins to N and W elevations, granite rubble to remainder. Base course; cill course; long and short dressings and quoins; eaves course; predominantly bipartite windows.

N (PRINCIPAL) ELEVATION: advanced gabled entrance bay to centre; roll-moulded pointed-arched doorway on polished colonettes with floreate capitals, 2-leaf panelled timber door with small-pane fanlight, architraved niche set in gablehead above. Steps to basement, at flanking bay to left, 2 shouldered timber windows to ground floor of 2 bays to left. Gabled bay to right, pointed-arched tripartite window, scrolls framing blank architraved tablet to tympanum, stepped hoodmould; 2 roundels set in gablehead; decorative stone finial.

W ELEVATION: symmetrical; 3-bay; gableted central bay breaking eaves, window to ground floor, scrolled architraved motif set in gablehead; window to each flanking bay.

S ELEVATION: asymmetrical; 3-bay; gabled bay to left, panelled timber door reached by 8 stone steps to centre of ground floor, flanked to left by tripartite window with relieving arch; window to each flanking bay to right; octagonal iron ventilator to ridge.

E ELEVATION: single window to right under stepped-up half-ogee gable with spherical finial.

Variety of timber sash and case windows. Grey slate roof, piended in places, with pierced terracotta ridge. Corniced wallhead and gablehead stacks with circular cans. Cast-iron rainwater goods.

INTERIOR: predominantly intact; tongue and groove timber panelling below dado; most cornicing survives; decorative moulding to ventilator; panelled door with stained glass upper panels, flanked by 4 stained glass panels to N wall of reading room.

Statement of Special Interest

Described by the Aberdeen Daily Journal as "neat and picturesque" the Ferryhill Library has the appearance of a gate lodge rather than a library. The stylised scrolls and stepped hood mouldings are typical of Arthur Clyne's church designs, but in addition to this the Renaissance detailing within the gothic tympanum suggest Queen Anne or Aesthetic Movement influence. The building is well proportioned and carefully balanced, the subtle detailing typifying Clyne's work after his rogue gothic partner, J B Pirie died.

References

Bibliography

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