Building record 1207900000 - 11 TEMPLE STREET

Grade II. Library and Reading Room, now restaurant and literary club. 1879-80 for Lionel Nathan de Rothschild by George Devey; extended 1903; later C20 alterations. Brick, pebble dashed and painted; plain tile roof; brick stacks. 2 storeys, part with attic; 4 bays, the 2 on left added 1903. Plinth; modillion eaves cornice. Moulded wooden mullion and transom windows with segment-headed central lights, apron panels, and cornices on ground floor; windows of 2 left bays have leaded glazing, those of right bay have late C20 replacement glazing. Right-hand bay has foundation stone dated 1879, 2-storey oriel window; rusticated pilasters to 1st floor; and recessed gable with blocked attic window, decorative barge boards and pendant finial. Bay to left, slightly set back and of same date has entrance: step up to late C20 double door with fanlight in bolection-moulded architrave surmounted by broken pediment and old iron lantern; above door is architraved and corniced recess with initials "NR" enclosed by wreath bearing the motto, "Concordia, Industria, Integrita". The 2 left-hand bays have foundation stone dated 1903; a one-light window to each floor of the narrow right-hand bay and to the left-hand bay a 5-light window on each floor (with coloured glass on ground floor) and gable. Raised brick verges. Corniced brick end stacks. Ridge louvre with battered, tile-hung, sides; wooden lantern, and swept pyramidal roof with wooden finial. Interior: panelled doors; ground-floor rooms panelled and with decorative wooden fireplaces, that in left-hand room having pilasters with garlands and Ionic capitals, dentilled cornice, and clock above in bracketed wooden surround. Coffered ceiling to stair hall, the stair plain but having panelled newels.
Originally the Reading Room was on the ground floor with Library above.
R Gibbs, A History of Aylesbury (1885); Buckinghamshire County Record Office, D.15/4/2, Robert Gibbs Scrapbrook, p.104 (B1).
Literary Institute by Devey, 1879-80, for Lionel de Rothschild, extended N in the same Queen Anne style by F Taylor in 1903. The interior is decorated in late C17 style (B2).