Picton Reading Room and Hornby Library

The Picton Reading Room and Hornby Library are two grade II* listed buildings on William Brown Street, Liverpool, England, which now form part of the Liverpool Central Library.

Picton Reading Room and Hornby Library
Picton Reading Room, William Brown Street
General information
Town or cityLiverpool
CountryEngland
Construction started1875
Completed1906
Design and construction
ArchitectCornelius Sherlock (Picton Reading Room)
Thomas Shelmerdine (Hornby Library)

The chairman of the William Brown Library and Museum, Sir James Picton, laid the foundation stone of the Picton Reading Room in 1875. It was designed by Cornelius Sherlock, and modelled after the British Museum Reading Room, and was the first electrically lit library in the UK. It was completed in 1879 formally opened by the Mayor of Liverpool, Sir Thomas Bland Royden. The front is semicircular with Corinthian columns, and the shape was chosen by the architect to cover the change in the axis of the row of buildings at this point. The Hornby Reading Room (named after Hugh Frederick Hornby) by Thomas Shelmerdine was added in 1906. It stands behind the older building and the interior is decorated in the Edwardian Imperial style.[1]

Picton Reading Room
  • Bust of Sir James Picton
  • View of the ground floor
  • Seen from the gallery
  • Interior of the dome
  • Doors to Hornby Library

Hornby Library
gollark: This is totally a rapA rap is what it is chap
gollark: I made an automatic rap generation programIt works by appending an unrelated word which rhymes with the end of the previous line amTo every second lineThis totally counts as rap mineVery valid rap indeedI win esolangs now speed
gollark: Nobody can diss my rhymesBecause they are made from fresh limesThis is the next lineApparently that rhymes with pine
gollark: My rhymes are strangeBut I'm going to rhyme with orængeI'm using a rhyming dictionaryOnline, not from the libraryTechnically it's an API for word association queriesThere exists a thing known as a "geometric series"
gollark: I am going to rip you apartSimilarly to shredded cheeseBy deploying a railgunWhich shoots bees

See also

References
  1. Pevsner, N. (1969) Lancashire; 1: the industrial and commercial south. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books; p. 159
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