Battersea Central Library

[3] Battersea experienced very rapid population growth over the next two decades; by 1881 it numbered 107,000 inhabitants, and as a result, both overshadowed the much smaller Wandsworth, and had ambitions to regain its autonomy.

[6] It immediately held a design competition to solicit plans for a building based on very detailed specifications of requirements; ten architects submitted entries, and that of Edward Mountford was selected.

[7] Mountford was local and presumably well known to the Vestry; he was at the time engaged in the design and construction of the nearby Northcote Road Baptist Church (and three years later would be selected as architect for the new Battersea Town Hall).

[7] Mountford's design is of three-stories (plus basement), in red brick by Richardson & Co of Brunswick Wharf, Vauxhall, with Portland stone dressings and a roof of Broseley slate[8] to match the extant 'speculating builder' constructions which characterise the area[9] - many of which owe their origins to the work of Alfred Heaver, the dominant property developer of what is now termed Clapham Junction.

This feature was added to Mountford's winning design after its submission and before building commenced; originally projected as a two-story turret, it was built to three-stories height.

The building is minimally embellished, having only carved-brick garlands and putti above the ground-floor windows of the projecting bays, probably by Gilbert Seale of Camberwell;[10] and decoration around the arched entrance with a frieze above.

[11] Andrew Saint, in Survey of London, Battersea, describes the building as being in the "mildly Flemish Renaissance style, in the spirit of Ernest George".