Jewry Street
West Side to City Road
The present District Library (Grade II* listed building) is a conversion of the original Corn Exchange, designed in 1838 by a local architect Owen Carter at a cost of £4,000.
The site was a cattle market but now there is a car park with a "bottle bank' for the collection of glass for recycling. The Library frontage has features similar to those on St Paul's Church, Covent Garden by Inigo Jones. The original building had a large granary store underneath and a residence for the Clerk to the Market.
By the early 1900s it was no longer being used exclusively as a Corn Exchange and two shops were inserted at the north end. Subsequently it was used as a sports centre, skating rink and the Regent Cinema (see photograph above). The building was then bought for £8,000 by the corporation. In 1936 it was converted into a public library and in 1964 the City Council restored the front facade and remodelled the interior at a cost of £33,000 (by Casson, Condor Partners). Another major improvement by the Hampshire County Architect, in 1977, costing £80,000, was to insert new floors and galleries and amenities such as wheel chair access.
Since the Public Libraries Act of 1850 when the library had about 500 books, there has been a separate building in North Walls for reference material and magazines.
The photograph also shows the Old Market Hotel with its attractive iron balcony, built in 1850 by a speculative builder called Vaughan. The hotel closed in 1912 and reopened as a theatre-music hall from 1914 until 1922, when it was converted to a cinema.
After the cinema closed a charitable trust bought the building in 1974 in order to stop its development into more offices. The first phase of restoration of the Victorian interior was completed in 1981.
The Theatre Royal and Nos. 22-26 are listed buildings of Group value Grade II.