Town Hall

LOFTUS HIGH STREET NZ 7218 (south side), Loftus. 4/36 Town Hall. G.V. II Town Hall, 1879, by E.R. Robson (London) for Earl of Zetland. Hammer-dressed sandstone in narrow coursing with quoins at angles and openings and continuous moulded plinth. Welsh slate roofs with stone gable copings. Modified French Gothic style. 2 storeys. Entrance front (west) asymmetrical, gabled to right and porch to left. Pointed doorway has chamfered angles and moulded head under ramped hoodmould with carved foliate stops. Glazed double doors. Chamfered cross window on first floor of porch has sashes and leaded upper lights with ogee heads. Upper part of porch chamfered at north-west corner, above battered angle, with fleur-de-lys carving. Gabled section has 3 chamfered mullioned-and-transomed windows with ogee-headed upper lights and altered glazing, on ground floor. Sill and floor strings. Similar first-floor windows flank large central pointed window, with hollow-chamfered mullions and transomes forming geometric tracery, under hoodmould with mask stops. Steeply-pitched roofs. Octagonal 2-stage tower rises from embattled parapet of porch. Panel holding municipal arms in relief on north-west face. Corner gargoyles at base of upper stage, with string course between. Buttresses and pinnacles at angles of upper stage. Clock faces in enriched panels on north, west and east faces; blank panel in south face. Embattled parapet and conical roof with metal finial. Projecting gable end to High Street has rectangular window on ground floor and pointed window on first floor, similar to those in entrance front, and flanked by buttresses. Similar windows in south side, some blocked, those on first floor recessed behind segmental arches springing from gabled pilaster strips with fleur-de-lys finials. Interior: open well staircase with Gothic cast iron balustrade, and patterned encaustic tiled floor in entrance hall. Ground-floor council chamber has panelled ceiling with bracketed beams. Assembly room on first floor has double-framed roof with moulded corbels supporting wall posts and curved braces to collars. Embattled corniced wall plates.

Listing NGR: NZ7219018148