DUMBARTON LIBRARY LISTING - B
The following (in italics) appears in the official listing:
Description
Dated 1909 (opened in 1910) and designed by William Reid, Dumbarton Library is a two-storey and basement, three-bay, purpose-built Carnegie public library designed in the Baroque classical style. The library is constructed in rusticated, coursed, pale Dalreoch ashlar sandstone. The rear of the building is constructed in red brick with contrasting ashlar margins to the rear. The building includes a dedicated committee room to the upper floor, accessed by a separate entrance door from Strathleven Place via a pedimented entrance archway. A later extension, dating from 1968, is attached to the northeast elevation (this is proposed to be excluded from the listing). The library is located along Strathleven Place next to a large roundabout along the A814 Glasgow Road.
Note - Ashlar is a term used to describe cut and dressed stone worked to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular; a structure built from such stones. [Wiki]. There are still signs of the small quarry at Dalreoch which is covered here: DALREOCH QUARRY This association comes from the historical research by Lairich Rig.
The principal (southeast) elevation has a recessed aediculed bay with a window opening to the centre and the town Coat of Arms above flanked by two pairs of Ionic columns. The building is inscribed 'Public Library'. Steps lead up to a round-arched entrance in the right-hand bay with a '1909' datestone above. The entrance has a replacement door with a semi-circular coloured glass fanlight above. The left-hand corner bay is two storeys high with a tall attic parapet returning to the west. There is a pediment above the ground floor window opening and open pediments breaking the roof eaves with putti decoration on the principal elevation. There is a string course at ground floor level and a dentilled cornice below the roofline with balustraded decoration above. The separate side entrance to the committee room has a timber, multi-panelled door and a cornice on console brackets above. There is a separate pedestrian entrance leading to basement level from Strathleven Place.
The windows are in a mixture of sizes, shapes and styles in both replacement uPVC and earlier timber frames, predominantly in a multi-pane glazing pattern of various configurations. The committee room section of the building has predominantly timber window frames. The windows in the brick-built section of the building are tall and narrow with predominantly replacement uPVC glazing within.
The roofs are shallowly pitched and covered in slates with some flat-roofed areas. There are regularly placed roof ventilators along the roof ridges and some chimneystacks remain in situ.
The interior of the library contains many of its early-20th century, neo-Baroque / classical style features, including its vaulted plasterwork ceilings to the main ground floor rooms, moulded cornicing, ventilation grilles, translucent rooflights and librarian's room cupola and glazed partitions, as well as some timber panelling and doors and glazed floor tiles. There is decorative coloured glass glazing throughout the building. The side entrance into the building has a stone staircase with moulded timber balusters leading to the committee room on the upper floor. This space contains timber panelling and decorative plasterwork.
A bell-shaped stone tablet, dated 1732 and 1790, is mounted above a fire exit in the eastern wall of the later extension. It is inscribed 'Tu Des Corona Decus' which translates as 'Do Thou Give Me Glory For a Crown'. It was moved here from the Mackenzie House on the High Street (and this is proposed to be included within the listing).
Note : This is described under DUMBARTON LIBRARY, STRATHLEVEN PLACE, DUMBARTON
Low stone walls with pyramidal coping front the pavement along Strathleven Place and sandstone rubble boundary walls with flat coping bound the property along Church Street and the roundabout elevation.
Historical development
In August 1904, Andrew Carnegie offered £6000 for a new library for Dumbarton on the condition that a site be secured without making the cost a burden on the ratepayers. The offer was accepted but it took four years for a suitable site to be found. The site along Strathleven Place was bought from the Town Council for £750 and raised by public subscription (Dundee Evening Telegraph).
A design competition for the new library was won by local architect, William Reid (West Dunbartonshire Libraries). Plans by Reid for a purpose-built library were approved on 4th January 1909 (Dean of Guild Plans) and the library was constructed largely as outlined on these plans.
The library opened to the public on 26th September 1910 (West Dunbartonshire Libraries; Edinburgh Evening News; plaque inside library). The library is first shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1914. At the time of its construction, it was flanked on both sides by existing buildings and the town tram network ran along Strathleven Place. In 1951 library management changed from closed access to open access. The Ordnance Survey map of 1963 shows the footprint of the library is unchanged but the plot to the immediate east was cleared by this time and is marked as a car park on this map.
An extension to the library was proposed in the mid-1960s and work started in May 1968, opening later that year (West Dunbartonshire Libraries). The extension was added onto the northeast elevation of the library building, taking up much of the car park (this extension is proposed to be excluded from the listing, see section 6). A bell-shaped stone, dated 1732 and 1790, was placed above the emergency exit of this extension in 1969 (this is included within the listing). This stone was originally part of the fabric of the Collegiate Church of St Mary and later formed part of a dormer in the 18th century Mackenzie House in the High Street before being relocated here in 1969 (Dumbarton Heritage Trail; Gifford et al., p.410).
There are plans for the building to become a publicly accessible community collections store and archive (West Dunbartonshire Council) and move the library service to Glencairn House (listed at category B, LB24887). As of September 2025, the library service remains within this building on Strathleven Place.
HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT SCOTLAND - Listings : https://portal.historicenvironment.scot/apex/f?p=1505:300:::::VIEWTYPE,VIEWREF:designation,LB52667
