P h o t o B l o g

Thursday 8 January 2009

Central Library


This is the Central Library and Art Gallery on Old Street in Ashton. It is the answer to yesterday's "where is this?" puzzle. The carved Viking boat is near the top of the face of the tower, high above the entrance steps.

The building dates from around 1890 and was built as the Heginbottom Technical School by the trustees of the late George Heginbottom, a local mill owner.

Following the 1880 Libraries Act, Ashton Corporation had opened a free library in Ashton Town Hall. Then in 1893 the library was moved to new purpose-built accommodation in the new Technical School building, where it remains to this day, as Tameside's Central Library. The remainder of the former school accommodation is now used for other library services, such as the reference and music libraries, and the upper floor is now Tameside's Art Gallery.

See Google Aerial View of this location.
See LiveSearch Birds Eye View of this location.

5 comments:

  1. I do like the looks of the old building. I hope the library books are as new or newer.

    I still have the old blogs but I also have new ones Abe Lincoln Blogs and also look at Abraham Lincoln's Blog

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  2. I learned much in the library and saw South Pacific in the Pavilion Theatre shown in the picture.

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  3. Aaah! I first joined Ashton Library as a 5 year old borrowing 'Milly Molly Mandy' books. Little did I know that I'd eventually work there!! I worked at the Central Library, before Ashton was absorbed into Tameside Metropolitan Borough, from 1964-1968. Trevor Bolton was the Chief Librarian and he encouraged me to go to college to become Chartered.

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  4. I recently went into the library researching my house. They were so helpful and we came away knowing much more about the history of our road. I think they offer a great service!

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  5. Libraries are wonderful places and their value is not always recognised. They can provide an education for those who haven't had the best opportunities. I recently visited the great new library in Amsterdam. It's really well used by all ages. It occurred to me that the Millennium monies would have been better spent on improving libraries here in the UK instead of the Dome- a complete waste of millions of pounds.

    ReplyDelete

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