Town Hall

The Town Hall, built in 1879, was designed by E.R. Robson (of London) for the Earl of Zetland. It’s constructed of hammer-dressed sandstone in narrow courses, with quoins at corners and around openings, and a continuous moulded plinth. The roof is Welsh slate with stone gable copings. The architectural style is Modified French Gothic.

The west-facing entrance front is asymmetrical, with a gabled section to the right and a porch to the left. The pointed doorway has chamfered angles and a moulded head under a ramped hoodmould with carved foliate stops. The doorway has glazed double doors. A chamfered cross window, featuring sashes and leaded upper lights with ogee heads, is located on the first floor of the porch. The upper part of the porch’s north-west corner is chamfered, above a battered angle, and includes a fleur-de-lys carving. The gabled section above has three chamfered mullioned-and-transomed windows with ogee-headed upper lights and altered glazing on the ground floor. Sill and floor strings are present. Similar first-floor windows flank a large central pointed window, with hollow-chamfered mullions and transomes forming geometric tracery, all under a hoodmould with mask stops. The steeply pitched roofs are a prominent feature.

An octagonal, two-stage tower rises from the embattled parapet of the porch. The north-west face of the tower displays a panel holding municipal arms in relief. Gargoyles are located at the base of the upper stage, separated by a string course. Buttresses and pinnacles are at the angles of the upper stage. Clock faces are set into enriched panels on the north, west, and east faces; a blank panel is present on the south face. An embattled parapet tops the tower, along with a conical roof and metal finial.

A projecting gable end fronts High Street, featuring a rectangular window on the ground floor and a pointed window on the first floor, similar to those on the entrance front. These are flanked by buttresses. Similar windows are found on the south side, with some blocked. First-floor windows on the south side are recessed behind segmental arches springing from gabled pilaster strips with fleur-de-lys finials.

Inside, there is an open-well staircase with a Gothic cast iron balustrade, and a patterned encaustic tiled floor in the entrance hall. The ground-floor council chamber features a panelled ceiling with bracketed beams. The first-floor assembly room has a double-framed roof with moulded corbels supporting wall posts and curved braces to collars, as well as embattled corniced wall plates.