Library and former town hall. 1862 designed by Peck and Stephens with 1884 additions designed by G MacDonell in the Italianate style. Yellow gault brick with ashlar dressings and hipped slate roofs. 2 storey. Main front, 11 bays with central single storey ashlar entrance with Ionic columns supporting an entablature, surmounted by the city coat-of-arms, and inscribed "1884, FREE LIBRARY". Round headed doorway with double panel doors and fanlight. Eitherside 5 round headed margin light sashes with moulded ashlar heads and a continuous impost band, above an ashlar cornice. Upper floor has 10 similar round headed sashes with brick coupled Doric pilasters between each window, the whole surmounted by an entablature. The junction with Peas Hill, has a canted corner bay with small flat headed sashes and round windows over, the upper floor has a loggia with 4 Ionic ashlar columns and a single round headed doorway. The Peas Hill front, 4 bays, with slightly projecting entrance bay defined by brick Doric pilasters with a round headed doorway with double panel doors and fanlight. To the left a single flat headed casement and to the right 2 round headed margin light sashes with moulded heads and continuous impost band. Above an ashlar cornice. Upper floor has 4 similar round headed sashes, with plain coupled brick Doric pilasters between except for the window over the doorway which has lightly projecting Doric pilasters, with 2 inset Ionic ashlar columns.
INTERIOR: The Central Junior Library contains a stone early/mid C16 fireplace from John Vesey's House. Library store retains original decoration including all original fitted book cases, with iron gallery, for upper access, with elegant iron balustrade and small iron spiral staircase. The rotunda has 8 tall marble columns arranged in a hexagon, with 4 extra columns, one at each corner, and pilasters on the walls. Each column has an ornate Corinthian capital, and ornately decorated sections of entablature above. The columns support 8 round arches with bracketted keystones. Above a narrow clerestory, then a shallow circular dome with plaster panels, and a central glazed cupola. Town hall is 5 bays and 2 storeys, apsidal ended, built in 1862 by Peck and Stephens. Decorated with broad pilaster strips with blank panels, those on the upper floor with round heads, projecting entablature divides floors, upper windows have balustrades over the cills, and similar entablature at impost level, with plain coved plaster ceiling above. North end has narrow upper gallery supported on iron columns with central round headed panel containing city coat-of-arms. South apsidal end has raised stage with stepped and curved seating platforms behind. Above a canted organ with elaborate wooden casing and exposed pipes.