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MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY

MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, 37A, CLERKENWELL GREEN

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1279541
Date first listed:: 28-Sep-1972
List Entry Name:: MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Statutory Address:: MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, 37A, CLERKENWELL GREEN

User submitted image — Uploaded by Dominic Martin This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
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Date:: 2001-04-17
Reference:: IOE01/03552/18
Rights:: © Peter Fuller. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1279541
Date first listed:: 28-Sep-1972
Date of most recent amendment:: 29-Sep-1994
List Entry Name:: MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
Statutory Address 1:: MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, 37A, CLERKENWELL GREEN

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY, 37A, CLERKENWELL GREEN

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: Islington (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 31512 82153

Details

ISLINGTON

TQ3182SE CLERKENWELL GREEN 635-1/74/281 (North West side) 29/09/72 No.37A Marx Memorial Library (Formerly Listed as: CLERKENWELL GREEN (North West side) Nos.37,37A & 38 (Consecutive))

GV II

Library. Built as the Welsh Charity School in 1737-8 to the designs of James Steere; the front elevation rebuilt in 1968-9 in sympathy with the original design under the supervision of A.A.Stewart; a circular plaque in the pediment records the dates 1737 and 1969. Brick covered with stucco, roof of Welsh slate. Two storeys over basement, five-window range and double-fronted, the three middle bays projecting slightly under a pediment and flanked by rusticated quoins which also flank the facade as a whole. Central flat-arched entrance with moulded stucco architrave and cornice on consoles over; doorcase has cornice and overlight. All windows flat-arched and without architraves except the central first-floor window which has a moulded stucco architrave and keystone; sill band to ground floor and storey band between floors; cornice, blocking course and pediment. End stacks. This building housed the Welsh Charity School (1738-1772), the Northumberland Arms (1738-1838), coffee rooms (1838-1880), the London Patriotic Club, an important radical workmen's club (1872-1892), the Twentieth Century Press, publishers of Socialist literature (1892-1922), and the Marx Memorial Library from 1933. Lenin edited Iskra here from 1902-1903. INTERIOR: . There are barrel-vaulted tunnels underneath the building and extending well beyond which may have been connected with the C12 nunnery on the site or with the former Sessions House (q.v.). On the first floor, on the party wall to the west, is a mural painting 'The Worker of the Future upsetting the Economic Chaos of the Present' painted c.1935 in buon fresco by Viscount Hastings, a pupil of Diego Rivera. The building is of exceptional importance as the only surviving building in Britain intimately associated with Lenin. (Historians' file, English Heritage London Division; Daily Mirror, 10 October 1935).

Listing NGR: TQ3151482155

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 368772
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
'Daily Mirror' in 10 October, (1935)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.