The Old Library (sometimes Old Carnegie Library) is a building on Queen's Square in

Wrexham city centre Wrexham city centre is the administrative, cultural and historic city centre of Wrexham, in North Wales and is the area enclosed by the inner ring road of the city. It is the largest shopping area in north and mid Wales, and the administrative c ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Built as a carnegie library in 1907, the building served as

Wrexham Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the county ...

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

until 1973, when it later became council offices. The building is

Grade II In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...

listed and owned by

Wrexham County Borough Council Wrexham County Borough Council () is the governing body for Wrexham County Borough, a principal area in north Wales, covering Wrexham and the surrounding area. History Elections take place every five years. The Labour Party held power on the ...

. It is proposed to be converted into a hub for

creative arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...

History

The building was constructed as a library and lecture hall in 1907. It was designed by Vernon Hodge. Over 100 architects had submitted designs for the new library. The building is a

listed building, and located in

's Queens Square. The construction received funding from Scottish-American philanthropist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans in ...

following an appeal over the lack of space for books in the town's existing library located in the Guildhall. A grant of £4,000 to build and £300 to furnish the library was provided from Carnegie for the building's construction. Mayoress of Wrexham, Mrs Birkett Evans laid the building's foundation stone on 1 January 1906. The building was opened on 15 February 1907 by Foster Cunliffe of

Acton Hall Acton ( cy, Gwaunyterfyn) is a suburb and community in Wrexham, Wrexham County Borough, Wales. It spans the north-eastern part of Wrexham. The area is largely residential and at its centre, lies Acton Park ( cy, Parc Gwaunyterfyn / Parc Acton), ...

, with the

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...

, aldermen and councillors also attending. Upon opening, the building's ground floor consisted of a lending library, magazine room, newsroom and a ladies' room. While the first floor had a "very fine" lecture hall, offices and a bookstore. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the building housed 500 juvenile and 700 adult books from Liverpool Library following the evacuation of 9,600 children from

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral ...

. The blackout during the war led to an increase in reading, with the number of library borrowers "dramatically" increasing during the war. The Food Office and an Information Bureau, were set up in part of the library during the war. The building was enlarged in 1951, at the cost of £6,641, modernising facilities and the addition of a "Wrexham Room" for books, illustrations, manuscripts, records of local interest, and an "Exhibition Room" to display art, craft and lectures. The building was vacated of its library function in 1973, with the library being superseded by the current library located on

Llwyn Isaf Llwyn Isaf ("lower grove") is a green space in the centre of Wrexham. It is surrounded on two sides by the city's guildhall and on another by the library. The space is most popular with students from the nearby Yale College. It is home to a b ...

, with the current library opening in 1974. Since 1973, the Old Library building had been used as council offices. The building is owned by

, and as of 2023, it was used to house the council's IT department.

Sale

In December 2020, Wrexham council announced it was planning to sell the building. This follows previous revelations that the council were vacating the building by moving their IT systems from the building into the renovated Crown Buildings. In January 2023, the council asked for any expressions of interest from any potential new occupiers, and described the building as "under used". In February 2023, a councillor called for the building to be made available for public use. The council refused to comment. In April 2024, it was announced the building is hoped to be converted into a "multi-purpose creative hub". The project is expected to cost £4 million, with £2.9 million already committed from the Welsh Government's Transforming Towns Fund. The remaining cost is hoped to be raised from other grants such as the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. The hub is aimed to support entrepreneurship in the creative industry, as well as serve as a "focal point" for local people, groups and businesses. The project aims to create a flexible working and co-working entrepreneurial environment, office space, recording studios, television production facilities, exhibition space, and places to hold workshops, including hi-tech workshops. Renovation work is expected to start in late 2024, with it scheduled to open in mid 2025.

Structure

The building is two storeys, with a graded slate roof, an

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...

lower storey and dressings, and is covered in

Flemish-bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by s ...

brickwork on the upper floor's exterior. The building used Cefn stone and Ruabon terracotta during its construction, while the front roof was made of Westmorland slate, and the back roof with Bangor slate. The main part of the building is in the baroque style. The central bay contains a coat of arms. While used as a library, the ground floor of the building contained a Ladies Room, seating 20 readers, a reference room of a similar size, a general reading room seating 50 readers and a librarian's office. The lending library had the capacity to hold 20,000 volumes. The first floor of the building contained a large lecture hall, seating 200 people. This lecture hall later became a local museum, then a reference room, meeting room, book-club room and a book store.

History

Sale

Structure

References

Further reading