AS plans are made to move a town library from its base for the past 130 years we are taking a look at how the building has been an importance part of community life.

The library in St George’s Road, Millom, faces a possible move to the Millom Hub, next to Millom School on the edge of town, to make way for a 100-job office for Sellafield nuclear workers.

Conversion to a flexible ‘touchdown hub’ for Sellafield staff would be the latest in a long list of uses for the building – including club, the town’s first secondary school, museum, infant school for girls, council chamber, museum and youth club.

The future use of the building is sure to figure when the library hosts a Meet Your Councillors event from 10am to 12pm this Saturday.

It is described as: “An opportunity to raise issues and concerns for the Millom and Haverigg community.”

The Millom Free Library and Reading Room started life as a working men's club in 1882.

By 1887 the club had failed and the ground floor rooms reopened as a library.

In 1901 the library was held 7,500 books and lent out 180 each day to the town's population of close to 11,000 - boosted by construction workers for the Outer Barrier sea defences at Hodbarrow iron ore mines.

Its first librarian, Alfred Hutchinson, stayed in charge for more than half a century until 1944.

In December 1954 the library had 3,529 members and had issued 19,438 books on loan in the past three months.

Back in September 1930 the average issue of books from the library was 100 per day.

A bust of the Millom poet Norman Nicholson by the sculptor Joan Palmer was unveiled in Millom library in June 1984.

Renovation work costing £28,000 was needed in 1983 and in 1987 a series of events was held to celebrate the library's centenary.

For more than 25 years, part of the ground floor at the side of library was home to the Millom Folk Museum.

From 1973 a team led by Wesley Park aimed to save and display items from the town and from the mines and ironworks which had closed five years earlier.

Its displays included a mine cage from Moorbank Pit, Hodbarrow and a reconstruction of a miner’s Cottage.

The museum moved to former Millom railway station buildings in 2001 and changed its name to Millom Heritage Museum and Visitor Centre in 2010.