The old Swansea Central Library in

Swansea Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal City status in the United Kingdom, city and the List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, second-largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of ...

, Wales, was a public lending and reference library in Alexandra Road, in the

city centre A city centre, also known as an urban core, is the Commerce, commercial, Culture, cultural and often the historical, Politics, political, and geographic heart of a city. The term "city centre" is primarily used in British English, and closely e ...

. The former library, a late 19th-century

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

, is now occupied by Swansea Metropolitan University's Welsh School of Architectural Glass.

History

The library was designed by Henry Holtom of

Dewsbury Dewsbury is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Calder, West Yorkshire, River Calder and on an arm of the Calder and Hebble Navigation waterway. It is to the west of Wakefield, ...

in the Italian classical style and opened in 1887 by the former and future Prime Minister

William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British politican, starting as Conservative MP for Newark and later becoming the leader of the Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party. In a career lasting over 60 years, he ...

. The circular reference library, in diameter, has a domed top, feet high in the centre. The collections provided a repository of source material for research on Swansea in particular and Wales in general. The

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer, whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Un ...

Collection, established in the early 1950s, consisted of over 3,000 books and periodical articles written by, or about, the Swansea-born poet and author. The library was closed on 6 November 2007. After its closure, the interior of the library building, including the domed reading room, was used extensively by

BBC Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcasting, public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, ...

as a location for the ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...

'' episodes "

Silence in the Library "Silence in the Library" is the eighth episode of the Doctor Who (series 4), fourth series of the revived British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 31 May 2008. It is the first of a two-part s ...

" and "

Forest of the Dead "Forest of the Dead" is the ninth episode of the fourth series of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast by BBC One on 7 June 2008. It is the second of a two-part story; the first part, "Silence in ...

". The new Swansea Central Library, opened in March 2008, is housed in the

Civic Centre A civic center or civic centre is a prominent land area within a community that is constructed to be its focal point or center. It usually contains of one or more dominant public buildings, which may also include a government building. Recently, ...

alongside the

West Glamorgan West Glamorgan () is a former administrative county in South Wales. It is now a preserved county. West Glamorgan was one of the divisions of the ancient county of Glamorgan. It was created on 1 April 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972 fr ...

Archives Service. In 2007,

Swansea Metropolitan University Swansea Metropolitan University () is a former university based in Swansea, Wales, UK. The university merged with, and became a constituent campus of, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David on 1 August 2013. Employing more than 500 staff ...

announced that they would acquire the Old Central Library building. With funding assistance from the EU, the university gave the building a £9.69 million renovation, almost £5 million over the budget, turning it into the new Welsh School of Architectural Glass, in 2015. A spokesman for the university stated that additional works were undertaken to meet revised requirements of the listed elements of the building, including the round reading room, the reinstatement of the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

to the central tower (damaged by World War II bombing) and works to the party walls.

References

External links

Swansea Libraries website
{{Authority control Library buildings completed in 1887 Former library buildings in Wales Grade II listed buildings in Swansea Swansea Metropolitan University