Description

TQ 1675 NW SOUTH STREET, Isleworth

787/24/10049 Isleworth Public Hall

II

Reading Room, 1863; public hall added 1887-8, by S Woodbridge; C20 alterations. Yellow stock brick in English bond with coated Welsh slate roofs and brick stacks. The 1863 block, at the front, is of 2 storeys, 3 x 1 bays, and is decoratively treated with a blue-brick plinth with off-sets; red brick to bands and to diaper-work between floors and to parapet; white herring-bone brick tympana to upper windows; and chamfered ashlar dressings to door, windows and verges. Windows, of 3 lights to ground floor and 2 Caernarvon-arched lights to 1st floor, have mullions, transoms and horizontal glazing bars. Entrance on left has flight of 4 stone steps, half-glazed double-doors and 3-pane over-light. 1st floor: panels flanking windows have blue-brick offset bases and stepped cogged heads; windows are set under pointed arches which rise above parapet into gablets with crested ridge tiles; continuous hoodmould. Parapet and raised verges with flat coping. Returns in same style, right return having a 3-light window to each floor and marble date stone recording the building of the extension; left return one 2-light window to 1st floor. The 1887 rear block is of 2 tall storeys and 4 bays and is linked to the front block by a lower bay with entrance at each side. The 1887 work is plainer. Openings have segmental red-brick arches. The windows are large 4-pane sashes, paired on the ground-floor. On the left (west) side, 2 doors take the place of windows, and give direct access to meeting rooms; two corbelled lateral stacks. Roof half-hipped to rear.
INTERIOR: 1863 block: entrance hall has colourful tessellated floor; marble Boer War memorial comprising decorative, classically-treated, corniced, plaque with pointed-arched recess inscribed with names; wide cantilevered stone stair with open treads, decorative cast-iron balusters, panelled wooden newels and moulded wooden handrail. Panelled doors. Reading room, on ground floor, has dado rail and simply-moulded fireplace. Vestry Hall on 1st floor has bolection-moulded fireplace and waggon-vaulted roof with exposed rafters. 1887 block has panelled doors; simple fireplaces; back-stair with wooden balusters, alternately plain and moulded; 1st-floor hall with stage, dado rail, cornice, chamfered principal rafters and collars, under-boarded roof.

This is a well-executed and colourfully-detailed example of a mid-C19 Reading Room which survives in a little-altered condition.

[All Saints' Isleworth Magazine - 1888; Annual Reports of the Isleworth Public Reading Room - 1871-1883]

Listing NGR: TQ1639775748

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Register. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 30 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26413028

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

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  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
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  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
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  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
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  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
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  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)