Libraries in Brighton and Hove
Download coordinates as: The English coastal city of Brighton and Hove has a long and varied history of libraries going back over 250 years.
[2] Branch libraries operate in the outlying villages and suburbs of Coldean, Hangleton, Hollingbury, Mile Oak, Moulsecoomb, Patcham, Portslade, Rottingdean, Saltdean, Westdene, Whitehawk and Woodingdean.
[8] New branch libraries have been built in the Coldean, Mile Oak, Whitehawk and Woodingdean suburbs, either as standalone buildings or as part of other community facilities.
Brighthelmstone on the Sussex coast in southeast England developed from a farming and fishing village into the fashionable leisure destination of Brighton from the mid-18th century.
In Brighton's earliest days as a resort, these privately owned facilities functioned as multi-purpose "informal meeting places" where visitors could "read, chat, listen to music, buy fripperies or gamble".
By the 1760s, Brighton's Master of Ceremonies also consulted the visitors' books from the various libraries to find out who was staying in the town and make contact with them.
[10] From the 1770s, when speculators built permanent theatres in the town, the libraries also sold tickets for performances,[11] for which they received a commission.
[C 1] A small wooden building with a veranda and an attached rotunda for musicians to perform in, "it was more like a club" than a modern library: its other features included billiards tables.
[15] Later, following a change of proprietor, it was known as Miss Widgett's Library[10][16][note 1] and was described by author Fanny Burney, a regular visitor to Brighton in the late 18th century: her journals made reference to "Widget [sic] the milliner and librarywoman".
[15] Raggett's Subscription House stood opposite Baker's Library on the north side of St James's Street and was a similar institution.
The society gained new strength in the mid-1830s when John Cordy Burrows (later to be Mayor of Brighton and a Freeman of the Borough) and Dr Henry Turrell (proprietor of a "famous" early-19th-century private school in the town) joined.
Around the same time, geologist and palaeontologist Gideon Mantell moved to Brighton and founded the Mantellian Institution,[22] which also had its own library at South Parade (now part of Old Steine).
It was an adjunct to a small museum created in the Pavilion seven years earlier, which consisted of various artworks and objects collected by the Corporation since it was formed.
This was only a temporary facility, though, because in 1871 the Corporation converted the former Royal Stables on Church Street near the Pavilion into a library, museum and art gallery.
Lockwood, the Borough Surveyor, undertook the work; he maintained the opulent Moorish/Indo-Saracenic Revival style of architecture[23] employed when the stables were built in 1804–08 by William Porden.
[26] Brighton Library thrived in the early 20th century as the Corporation received a series of donations and bequests of national importance.
[28] During World War II, Brighton Council converted the basement of the library, art gallery and museum complex into an air-raid shelter.
Books were moved out of the library and taken to the Booth Museum of Natural History in suburban Prestonville, where they lay in piles on the floor until the war ended.
Soon after Brighton and Hove Council was formed in 1997, it sought funding for a new library on this site through a private finance initiative (PFI).
Three years later, Andrew Carnegie's endowment of £10,000 allowed the borough to provide a permanent library in purpose-built premises.
The building would have encroached on St Ann's Well Gardens, and public opposition to this meant the Davigdor Branch never went ahead.
One of these is the Grade II-listed Hove Library: in late 2015, it was calculated that more than £1.2 million would be needed in the next five years for running costs and maintenance.
[39] As a result, the city council announced a proposal to close the library and move its books and other facilities to an extended Hove Museum and Art Gallery.
[42] Library service revenue in the 2013/2014 financial year was £643,797 and was generated from various sources: fines for overdue books, sales of surplus stock, letting space and hiring equipment to other organisations, and grants.
"Carefully wrought but nonetheless striking",[46] the library is formed of a "slightly austere translucent glass box" with an angled brise soleil and tiled side walls.
[51] The Hove Commissioners formed a committee to investigate the establishment of a "Free Public Library" for the growing town.
William Willett offered space at 11 Grand Avenue, and a reading room and reference library was established later that year.
The design submitted by Percy Robinson and W. Alban Jones of Leeds was the winner, the plans were signed off by the council in October 1906, and the foundation stone was laid on 10 June 1907 by the Mayor of Hove.
The "highly inventive" Doulting stone building has two storeys and has elements of the Edwardian Baroque and Renaissance Revival styles.
Situated on the north side of Church Street opposite the old library and art gallery complex, it had a varied history.
