This striking grade II listed building was purpose built as Walsall’s first permanent subscribers’ library. Built in 1830–1 in the Greek Doric style, it was divided into news and reading rooms. By 1847, however, the building had fallen into disrepair, with the library struggling to make a profit. Not long after that, it was altered internally to provide an imposing county court building.

Photographs and text about St. Matthew’s Hall

The text reads: This striking grade II listed building was purpose built as Walsall’s first permanent library for subscribers. Built in the Greek Doric style, in 1830–1, it was divided into news and reading rooms. By 1847, however, the building had fallen into a state of disrepair, and the library evidently struggled to make a profit. Not long after that, it was altered internally to provide a suitably imposing County Court building. The books went on to find a new home in Walsall’s new Free Library.

The building survives today, minus the attractive iron forecourt railings, and has been in use since 1998 as a pub, originally known as The Old Court House and later as Martha’s Vineyard. The building has now been renamed using its original name.

The designer’s notes of St. Matthew’s Hall

The text reads: This striking grade II listed building was purpose built as Walsall’s first permanent library. Built in the Greek Doric style, in 1830–1, it was called St Matthew’s Hall, and was dived into news and reading rooms.

Although the building went on to accommodate a number of differing functions, it has retained much of its original grandeur, particularly externally.

On entering the building through the main grand portico, the immediate interior offers a contrasting environment to the huge scale of the building. The somewhat cellular layout promotes exploration of the different rooms and areas leading off from each other. These rooms each have their own identity and character, just as they would have done in the former library.

Our design has in fact embraced the original library to retain and even enhance some of the original building qualities that can be shared with a public house or restaurant. The ‘reading room’ located off the main bar area offers a smaller, intimate space, where you can experience our bespoke tailored saddle stool, whilst the larger shared spaces of the bar area and the rear hall create comfortable spaces to drink and dine with friends and family. The lower conservatory enjoys natural daylight and a strong relationship with the new courtyard garden room.

With the strong impact of the library still evident in the building, our idea was to create not just a public house with some books but a collaboration with a difference. We started to question what happened in a library after dark when the last book had been closed and the last studious fellow closed the door behind them…

Books – The original books were presented to the Free Library for the people of Walsall to continue enjoying. However, a good pub is a great place to sit and read, and, as such, more books were required to fill the shelves. Like most libraries, books come in all different shapes and sizes … and this is where to find the secret life of the ‘library after dark’.

In the rear hall, you will find two special books hanging from the ceiling, titled Helios, God of the Sun and Hyperion, God of Light. When the sun goes down, these books come alive to reveal a transformation…

To see that, you may just have to visit on an evening that Helios and Hyperion come alive!

A copy of an old library poster

External photograph of the building – main entrance