Former Town Hall

KNUTSFORD

SJ7478 TOFT ROAD 792-1/3/109 (East side) 15/01/74 Former Town Hall

GV II

Town hall, now in commercial use. 1871. Alfred Waterhouse. Red brick with blue brick dressings and plain tiled roof with scalloped bands and ridge cresting. Main range and lower staircase block to NW, parallel rear range. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys with attic. arcaded ground floor of 5 bays, with blue brick squat cylindrical columns on red brick bases and with red brick stiff-leaf capitals. Projecting gabled entrance porch to the left, with deeply moulded arched entrance. Blue brick bands and rosette frieze to ground floor, upper 3-light Gothic windows with blind terracotta panels with interlace decoration below, and terracotta hoodmoulds. Arms in low relief panels each side. Triangular corbelled eaves cornice. 3 gabled dormers in the roof, with quatrefoil lights and decorative brick cornice. Leaded spirelet to roof. Staircase block to left, with stepped windows to stair. Parallel rear range presumably built to house offices, of 3 storeys, with subsidiary entrance tower at SW angle. Axial and end stacks. INTERIOR: lofty main hall at upper level, with cambered trusses to roof, braced with wrought-iron ties. Panelled gallery projects from north wall, carried on paired struts. Stone staircase with heavy newels and wrought-iron rails.

Listing NGR: SJ7517378540