Richard Bingham continues his Shoreham Unlisted series on the unsung heroes of Shoreham’s architecture with a trip to the library.
The word today is “orthogonal”. Not one to try on Wordle. (Although there are a lot of O’s, so it might not be too bad).
Orthogonal means made up of right angles, and that’s certainly the case with Shoreham Library.
The building occupies a prominent site on the corner of Pond Road and St Mary’s Road. So a soaring Norman church confronts a modern, flat-roofed, strictly functional, rectangular, brick-built building. It’s a tough face off. Luckily, though, the modern building both knows its place and holds its own. It’s right angles are softened by the way the building steps back from the road, and by the planting at the perimeter and to the side. That discretion is helped, too, by the building’s sleek, low profile: the ground floor is sunk below pavement level.
The first floor of the building oversails the podium on which the library is built. At its corners, that first floor is supported on concrete pilotis (undecorated columns to you and me). The services, meanwhile, are located downstairs, where there is a kitchen and a toilet for the library staff.
Apart from the signage, the most obvious feature of the elevation along St Mary’s Road is the huge picture window in the middle of the wall. This prevents the building from becoming faceless but also fills the library with the kind of natural light that is ideal for comfortable reading.
South-facing, the size of the window might have resulted in excessive glare and heat gain in the summer months, but the architect has correctly surmised that the sunlight is tempered by the towering church and the plentiful trees in the churchyard. From the interior, meanwhile, the huge window affords one of the best views of both St Mary’s Church and the changing seasons. The current Librarian has made the most of this by placing tables and chairs in front of the window.
On the western elevation, the library is accessed via a flight of steps. This side of the building is a little faceless, although eared at either ends by a pair of narrow, rectangular windows. (Orthogonal again). On the other side, a ramp provides an easier means of access.
Tarnished Reputation
In truth, it is not a lovely building. Shoreham Library is functional and a little nondescript, especially compared with the more striking designs of other West Sussex libraries. Opened in 1966, around the same time as Shoreham, the central library in Chichester was Grade II listed in 2015 thanks to its innovative circular design – nothing orthogonal here – and its varied palate of concrete and glass exterior and warm brick interior.
Chichester’s circular design was perhaps the inspiration for the much later Steyning branch library (1996) with its more contemporary palate of timber, glass and brick, materials chosen specifically to blend in with the older buildings nearby. Both Steyning and Chichester also deploy attractive glass clerestories in order to bring light into the library.
But it’s not just those right angles that make Shoreham library a little hard to love. The reason to lift the library off the ground on its podium is to accommodate the car park on the basement floor of the development. In 1969, the car was king, not the modern pariah it has since become. For users of both the library and the nearby medical centre, a car park in the undercroft was a necessity.
Above ground, a rather bleak concourse leads between the front entrance of the library with its welcoming sliding doors and the medical centre. That and the undercroft car park are together responsible for the development’s slightly tarnished reputation.
The undercroft is a typical example of what Oscar Newman, in an influential book on urban crime and its causes published in 1972, called “indefensible space”. Such a space is hidden from plain sight, has a complex layout and suffers from poor maintenance – all things that characterise the undercroft, with its many points of entry and exit and its shadowy corners.
Broken glass, revving motorbikes and shouted arguments – at night, the undercroft can sometimes become a bit of a playground for teenage tearaways.
Loving Libraries
The idea of libraries, however, is far easier to love – and needs defending. In his essay Public Libraries in the Twentieth Century, Robert Drake calls this building type “an emblematic part of the public realm”.
Shoreham Library was built during what Drake calls the “golden age” for libraries between 1955 and 1975. Local authorities had been responsible for the provision of libraries since 1919, but it was only after the Second World War that libraries were built in countless small towns up and down the country. These towns included Shoreham, Lancing and Southwick – all of which retain their branch libraries to this day.
After 1975, however, the availability of cheap paperbacks together with swingeing local government cuts, saw libraries go into decline. Loans fell from 650 million in 1984 to just 269 million in 2007/8. Yet visitor numbers remained static at about 300 million per year.
That’s because, latterly, libraries have repositioned themselves as community hubs. Originating in the Victorian age of self-help – worthy places where people could educate themselves – today’s libraries have become multi-purpose venues.
As well as free wi-fi and study corrals, a plethora of events take place at Shoreham Library, from Board Games to Knit and Natter, from author talks to the ever popular Rhyme Time for the children.
The return of austerity has not been kind to libraries, though. In 2023 Brighton and Hove City Council closed Mile Oak Library. East Sussex has likewise made deep cuts to their library service. In contrast, West Sussex County Council is to be applauded for its continued commitment to our libraries.
The Future
There have been various plans to redevelop the site on Pond Road, land which was formerly owned by Shoreham Grammar School. (Beneath that car park are the remains of the kitchen gardens that fed the pupils and masters).
It is a site with massive potential for pedestrianisation, thereby creating an attractive civic approach to St Mary’s Church, an approach that would take in the Shoreham Centre on one side of Pond Road and a rebuilt library and health centre on the other.
Right now, all these plans lay in abeyance, for cost reasons and also, perhaps, because of the variety of landowners involved. The Health Centre belongs to the NHS Trust, the library belongs to West Sussex Council while the grass verge – colloquially known as “The Mound” – is the property of Adur Council.
For the moment, whether we love the building or not, we should give thanks for the existence of Shoreham library…and, in particular, for the uniformly friendly, expert and helpful staff who work there.
