British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

ALDERSHOT
SU 85 SE
KNOLLY'S ROAD
(North side)
991-0/2/43
Prince Consort Library
20.8.79
II

Library and flat, now office. 1860, designed by Cpt Francis Fowke RE, at the instigation and cost of Prince Albert; extended early-mid C20. Yellow brick with red brick dressings, ridge stack encased in weatherboarded lower section and rear gable stack, and slate roof Rectangular plan with parallel left-hand side extension. EXTERIOR: single storey; 3-bay front gable and 8-bay sides. Front entrance gable divided by pilaster strips into 3 sunken sections, wider in the
middle, with brick corbel table and red brick eaves cornice to coped gable; recessed ground floor behind a loggia of open segmental red brick arches, first-floor arcades of red brick round-arched windows, 3 to the middle and 2 each side with a royal coat of arms above, and decorated panels beneath. The right-hand return has arcade of blind segmental arches and enriched brick eaves cornice. Poof with long flush glazed lights. Lower left-hand C20 range has a gable divided into 4 sunken sections with projecting mid C20 porch, and paired first-floor round-arched windows. INTERIOR: main section divided into the reading room, with a timber gallery on three sides with simple diagonally-braced rail and iron ties bolted to timber trusses, and a front librarian's flat, now office, with a meeting room over the ground floor loggia, original fireplaces and stairs up with stick balusters, column newels and wreathed rail. Fittings: Original fittings include book shelves, reading desks and chairs. HISTORY: originally with accommodation for the librarian, hence the heated front section. One of the first barracks libraries to be built, for which the Prince donated 2000 books. Specially significant for the involvement of both the Prince Consort and Fowke, the designer of the Albert Hall, and for the notable survival of many of the original fittings. (Vickers P H: A Gift So Generously Bestowed: The Prince Consort's Library: Winchester: 1992-; Childerhouse T: Military Aldershot, the first fifty years: London: 1990-).



Listing NGR: SU8596151712

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence.