Stourbridge- Former Free Library & Tech/Art College Built 1909 And War Memorial

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Seller: vale-of-mowbray ✉️ (2,476) 100%, Location: Thirsk, GB, Ships to: GB & many other countries, Item: 394935749502 STOURBRIDGE- FORMER FREE LIBRARY & TECH/ART COLLEGE BUILT 1909 AND WAR MEMORIAL. College of Art, formerly town library and technical college. 1903-4 and 1908-9 by Frederick Woodward. Red brick with terracotta dressings and Cumberland and Welsh slate roofs with various brick stacks. In Netherlandish Renaissance style. Complex plan with various ranges occupying corner site. Mostly of 3 storeys, basement and attic. Entrance to corner on right has elaborate terracotta archway surmounted by relief figures within a tympanum. Steps lead to part-glazed doors filled with elaborate stained glass including portrait roundels of Kelvin, Shakespeare, Rubens and Mozart. Tall basket- arched windows over, with moulded terracotta frames and ornamental cornice hoods. Coped Dutch gable. To right a canted battlemented section containing the staircase with similar elaborately ornamented window frames. Further to right, facing Hagley Road, a 2-storey range in similar style. On right an elaborate terracotta archway leading to door, and a clock tower over with clock faces within balconied arches and a domed open belvedere on top. Behind this section rises the second span of the range facing Church Street. Wide sash windows, some with terracotta decoration. On the roof ridge an elaborate domed lantern. To left of the front entrance the end of the range facing Church Street which has a large polygonal 2-storey bay with battlemented parapet and large arched window over. To left the front facing Church Street which is a 9-window range with 4 slightly projecting gabled sections and similar fenestration with elaborate terracotta window surrounds. Further doorway in 2nd gable from left. 2 elaborate domed lanterns on roof. Interior: glazed doors and partitions, staircase with decorative cast-iron balustrade and a fine and extensive series of stained glass windows in art-nouveau style, one signed S Evans, Stained Glass Works, West Smethwick. These are most elaborate on the stairs but continue on both the Hagley Road and Church Street fronts and are a very important feature of the building. Andrew Carnegie contributed £3,000 to the library's foundation anThe war memorial in the old Worcestershire market town of Stourbridge, which since 1974 has been part of the Borough of Dudley in West Midlands County, was unveiled in 1923. Comparable with the example in Skipton, it is one of the most elaborate of Cassidy's war memorials. For a description, we can do no better than that published with the report of its unveiling by the Lord Lieutenant of Worcestershire - an 'impressive and historic ceremony' - in the County Express newspaper of 3 March 1923: Built upon a concrete foundation, the monument has a granite base 8ft. 3 ins. by 6 ft. 9 ins. with a plinth of Darley Dale stone. At the front and rear of the lower portion of the plinth are two descriptive panels in bronze, one depicting infantry tanks, a despatch rider, etc., and the the other illustrating sailors manning a heavy gun on board a warship, both being suggestive of scenes of battle in which local members of the forces were engaged. Harmonising with these panels are two bronze inscription plates which are affixed to the sides of the plinth. Inscribed on one of the plates in low relief is the following: "These men fought and died on many lands and seas - France, Belgium, Italy, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Mesopotamia, Palestine and the North Sea." The other plate bears the inscription: "This Memorial was erected by public subscription to commemorate the heroism of the Rt. Hon. The Earl of Coventry, February 25th, 1923." Immediately above the bronze panels are bronze trophies surmounted by the main shaft,  also of Darley Dale stone, on which are the bronze name plates. Over these are two bronze laurel wreaths, surrounding crests of the Worcestershire Regiment, and two bronze lions' heads, one each side of the shaft. Resting on a moulded cap (just below which the key pattern is carved) at the head of the monument, is a fine bronze figure, representing Victorious Peace,  stooping, and holding out a bronze wreath in her left hand, while the right hand supports the furled flag. The designer of the memorial is Mr Ernest W. Pickford...  responsible for the design and all the drawings for the monument ... also the designer for the Memorial in the cemetery. Mr. John Cassidy, Fellow of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, modelled the statue and designed and modelled the descriptive and decorative bronze panels ... The rich metalwork of the Stourbridge Memorial was cast at Messrs. Martin's, Cheltenham, and by the Bromsgrove Guild. The Stourbridge Borough War Memorial Committee was established in 1919. Suggestions for memorials included a club-house for ex-servicemen, some form of sporting facility or an extension to the Corbett Hospital. Money for the project was raised by public subscription and the Committee succeeded in raising over £8,000. A cenotaph was built in the centre of Stourbridge Cemetery and a War Memorial Club with sports ground were purchased at Amblecote, but it was also decided to create a large Memorial in the town centre. As at other towns, Committee face the problem of how to assemble the list of names of men born in Stourbridge to commemorate; families were encouraged to send names for inclusion as there was no central source of such information.  Some names of men of the borough which appear on other local memorials in churches and elsewhere are missing, and there are names there whose stories researchers have been unable to trace. 377 names from World War I are listed on the bronze plaques, augmented by 135 from the Second World War which appear on additional plaques. The memorial is unique among Cassidy works in having a book devoted to it: The Stourbridge War Memorial: Remembering the Men of Stourbridge edited by local historian Roy Peacock for the Stourbridge Historical Society and published in 2005. This book was followed by two more from the same source, tracing the stories of the men listed on the monument: Remembering the Men of Stourbridge: The Great War 1914-18 and Remembering the Men of Stourbridge: The Second World War 1939-45.   The memorial, which was erected by George Brown and Sons of Hagley Road, Stourbridge, monumental masons, originally stood at the south end of the High Street, at the junction with Hagley Road, New Road and Church Street. The traffic at this junction became increasingly heavy, and in 1968 the memorial was moved to its present position in Mary Stevens Park to make way for the 'inner ring road' and faciltitate the holding of Rembrance Day ceremonies a further £700 to the 1908 newsroom extension.
  • Condition: Used
  • Condition: VERY GOOD
  • Unit of Sale: Single Unit
  • Number of Items in Set: 1
  • Featured Person: FREDERICK WOODWARD
  • Occasion: STOURBRIDGE HIGH STREET
  • Size: Standard (140x89mm)
  • Signed: No
  • Year Manufactured: 1931
  • City: Dudley
  • Original/Licensed Reprint: Original
  • Brand/Publisher: FRITH
  • Subject: LIBRARY , COLLEGE AND CENOTAPH
  • Type: Printed (Lithograph)
  • Continent: Europe
  • Era: Inter-War (1918-1939)
  • Region: Worcestershire
  • Country: England
  • Theme: Architecture, Cities & Towns, Community Life, Corps & Regiments, Events, Exhibitions, Historical Figures, Landscapes, Militaria, Social History, Studentica, Universities
  • Features: Divided Back, White Border, SEPIA
  • MEMORIAL REMOVED FROM HIGH STREET: 1967 TO MARY STEVENS PARK
  • Time Period Manufactured: 1930-1939
  • Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
  • Unit Quantity: 1
  • Number of Items: Single
  • Postage Condition: Unposted

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