The Town Hall

The Town Hall is a town hall originally built in 1714 by Vanbrugh for the Earl of Carlisle. It was rebuilt with a facsimile facade by R.J. Johnson after a fire in 1869. The building features an ashlar facade with brick at the rear and has a Lakeland slate roof. It is designed in the Baroque style and consists of two storeys, with a three-bay center flanked by three-storey, one-bay towers.

The entire structure is rusticated, with the rustication breaking around openings to form voussoirs. The ground floor is arcaded with round arches that are filled with elaborate wrought-iron grilles and gates. On the first floor, there are large 24-pane sash windows in moulded segment-headed openings with keystones. The center section of the building is pedimented. Each tower features a massive upper storey with open round arches and pediments on each side. The roof is hipped with corniced ridge stacks.

The interior, designed by Johnson in an early 18th-century style, includes an imposing open-well staircase and a large panelled room on the first floor that spans the front of the building.