page_title: Literary Hall
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Literary Hall / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Romney WV
context_page_description: Literary Hall is a mid-19th-century brick library, building and museum located in Romney, a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the intersection of North High Street and West Main Street. Literary Hall was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Romney Literary Society.
  Founded in 1819, the Romney Literary Society was the first literary organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. In 1846, the society constructed a building which housed the Romney Classical Institute and its library. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute both flourished and continued to grow in importance and influence until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861.
  During the war, the contents of the society's library were plundered by Union Army forces, and many of its 3,000 volumes were either scattered or destroyed. After a reorganization in 1869, the society commenced construction of the present Literary Hall in downtown Romney.
context_section_description: The interior and exterior of Literary Hall remain largely intact. At two stories, the building is tall in its proportion and incorporates elements from both early American and Victorian styles, which were common in academic buildings built during this period.
  Architectural historian S. Allen Chambers described Literary Hall as an anomaly because the basic design and fenestration patterns, which invoke early Federal and Greek Revival design elements, are adorned with details more characteristic of the Victorian era.
  According to architectural historian Michael J. Pauley of the West Virginia Department of Culture and History's Historic Preservation Unit, Literary Hall's unique structural features make the building "one of Romney's and Hampshire County's most notable landmarks, and one in which this community is justifiably proud". Pauley further averred that the building is "highly representative of the development of education and literature in the early United States". In describing its impact on Romney's streetscape, Chambers described Literary Hall as "adding distinction to Romney's major street intersection". Chambers also noted the building's resemblance and "strong architectural kinship" to the Romney Presbyterian Church.
  Literary Hall is a two-story red brick structure, rectangular in plan, and topped with a gable roof. The first floor of Literary Hall consists of four rooms, and the second story is a single large ballroom. Fused with symmetrical elements evoking Federal and Greek Revival architectural styles are exterior decorative moldings and brick corbeling in the Victorian style.
  The main façade (south elevation) of Literary Hall is divided into three bays, and its west and east elevations are divided into five bays. Each of the building's bays consists of a double-hung sash wooden window, with nine panes of glass within each sash. The windows are symmetrically placed within recessed brick panels that are defined at the first and second stories of the building with elementary brick ribs, or pseudo-pilasters, that form the outer surface of the building's exterior walls and provide separation of the three bays of the main façade and the five bays of the west and east elevations. The windows are framed by white wooden louvered window shutters. The building's brick is laid in an American bond pattern, with five courses of stretchers between every course of headers.
  The main façade is topped by a simple wooden raking cornice that surmounts an ornamental corbel brick pendant. A semicircular fanlight, or lunette, is located in the center of the gable of the building's main façade, providing lighting to the building's attic. Chambers described this window as the most antiquated of the building's architectural elements and may have been based on the fanlight of the county's earlier courthouse built in 1833, which was located to the building's east.
  Each of the main façade's first- and second-story windows and the entrance are adorned with white wooden label moldings. The main entrance is composed of a tall double wooden entrance door, with its original handle and locks. Each door consists of four vertical wooden panels. A rectangular transom light of four vertical glass panels tops the main entryway's double wooden doors. Outside the entryway is a spacious brick stoop that is accessed by a cement walkway from West Main Street. Its brick steps leading up to the stoop were last restored in the late 1970s.
  Literary Hall is flanked by two interior side chimneys, between the second and third bays of the west and east elevations of the building. The building rests on a sandstone, ashlar block foundation. Its gable roof is sheathed with standing seam tin sheeting.
caption: Literary Hall's main façade, photographed at night
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