Town Hall

A town hall built 1865-69 by William Henry Lynn of Lanyon Lynn and Lanyon of Belfast. The council chamber was gutted by fire in 1897 and redesigned internally by Thomas Meakin Lockwood in 1898. The building is constructed of banded pink and buff sandstone with a graded grey-green slate roof.

Exterior

The building has a semi-basement, two main storeys and a dormer attic. The design shows 13th-century French influence. The front elevation is symmetrical with a 160-foot helm spire. Opposed flights of steps with a pierced parapet in front of the plain semi-basement lead to a central landing before the porch, which is recessed behind a pair of arches with a polished stone central column. The semi-basement, formerly largely occupied by a courtroom, cells and police station, has rectangular windows. A secondary entrance near the south end has a recessed segmental-arched surround.

The semi-basement is treated as a plinth with a cap-moulding at floor level of the first main storey. This storey has four pairs of arched windows with colonnettes and plate tracery south of the slightly-projecting entrance bay, and two similar pairs and two single arched windows north of the entrance. A moulded stringcourse runs at sill level. Between the entrance arches the date 1869 and the pre-1974 Chester City arms are carved.

The second main storey has an ornate stringcourse carried across a projecting central balcony on three pairs of shaped brackets, with stone balustrade. Two pairs of arched French windows to the balcony are separated by a central pier with four colonnettes. There is a colonnette before the meeting-stiles of each pair of doors. Shafts at each end of the entrance bay rise from balcony to eaves. Four pairs of arched windows to each side of the entrance bay have colonnettes, plate tracery, recessed circlets with shields on quatrefoils beneath the windows and larger circular cartouches above each pair of windows. The windows to the council chamber on the north have leaded lights. A tourelle stands at each corner. An ornate stringcourse and cornice beneath the parapet balustrade is carried across a balustraded balcony at the base of the tower.

The first stage of the tower has two pairs of French doors to the balcony, with colonnettes and tracery. Three hipped dormers with ornate finials stand in the roof to each side of the tower. Cast-iron cresting decorates the roofs. An ornate stringcourse runs at the base of the second stage of tower. Triple bell-openings have boarded louvres and a gabled niche to each side. A corbelled stringcourse runs above. The plate tracery of a circular window in each gable of the helm spire serves as a clock-face. Corner pinnacles have niches and crockets. A steep-roofed hipped dormer on each face of the spire has boarded louvres and an ornate finial. The spire terminates in a balconied belvedere with a steep pyramidal roof.

The north side to Princess Street is asymmetric with an octagonal stair turret at the junction of the principal block with the lower rear wing. The top stage is expressed as a belfry with a small spire. Entrances lead to the magistrates court and the former police station, now the City Record Office; the latter retains the lantern of its former blue lamp. The elements of fenestration, stringcourses and ornament are similar to those described for the front, but the three pairs of arched windows to the council chamber in the second main storey have shaped leaded glazing, unlike the plain glass of other windows, probably designed by Lockwood and inserted in 1898.

The south side and rear are largely concealed by the Forum development of the 1960s.

Interior

The central axis comprises the recessed porch, the stair hall with a cross passage to each of the two main storeys of the Council Suite, the waiting hall with doors to the parallel Assembly Hall on the south and the Magistrates (formerly Quarter-Sessions) Court on the north, and to a rear cross passage enclosed in 1886 at its west end.

The central cluster of four polished granite columns in the porch bear a groined vault of red sandstone. Four panels of cream freestone by a "sculptor of repute" apparently selected by Lynn depict Roman Soldiers Building the Walls of Deva, King Egbert Uniting the Kingdom of Mercia, Hugh Lupus created Earl of Chester (by William I) and The Entry of Charles I into Chester.

The flagged stair hall has a groined vault with the passage to each side barrel vaulted in painted brick. Doors are panelled pine. The divided stair of stone curves in to a landing which bridges the hall, with an apsidal arcade behind. The drum of the stairwell has full-length pictures painted in 1578, bought from Sir Thomas Stanley Massey Stanley of Hoole by Sir Thomas Gibbons Frost in 1883 and presented to the City. A memorial presented by the Polish Air Force, stationed at Sealand, in 1944 is displayed. Eight stained glass windows in the arcaded clerestory by Robert Benson Edmondson of Manchester depict Gherbod the Fleming who declined the Earldom of Chester to return to Flanders and the seven Norman Earls of Chester.

A straight stone stair leads from the landing to the waiting hall, which has double doors to the Court, the Assembly Hall and the rear passage. A war memorial bearing 768 names was erected by Sir John Meadows Frost, Mayor 1913-19. Four sculpted panels depict Minstrels Marching to Relieve Earl Randolph (at Rhuddlan), Black Prince granting Charter to Citizens, Henry VII Constituting Chester a County and Sir William Brereton (a Parliamentarian) before the Mayor's (Royalist) Court. The walls are panelled to a dado at lintel level. A circular window in the west gable depicts the Common Seal of Chester City. Clerestory windows pierce the north wall. The room has a wagon roof.

The Court is panelled to the dado rail and has probably original furnishing, a low west gallery, and a round-arched recess behind the Bench. There is a broad door of nine panels to each side, the upper six panels having leaded glazing. A double door leads to the waiting hall and the rear passage. Three trusses support the roof, which has a coved lantern with two large roof-lights with leaded glazing.

The Assembly Hall is panelled to the dado rail at lintel level. The east end has an apsidal raised orchestra stage. A circular window of stained glass in the west gable has plate tracery. The roof trusses are largely hidden by a ceiling inserted in the later 20th century.

The upper landing from the stair hall has a pointed arch of red sandstone to the passage at each side. Above the door to the central front room, the Mayor's Parlour, a sculpted panel depicts Edward Prince of Wales receiving homage, First Royal Earl of Chester A.D.1252. Arch-braced trusses support the boarded roof over the landing and the apse of the stairwell. The passage to each side of the landing has a timber ceiling with joists exposed. Above the door of the south room a sculpted panel depicts James the Second welcomed by the Citizens and Nobility. Above the door to the Council Chamber on the north, the panel depicts Charter granted to Mayor and Corporation by Randolph the Third, A.D.1181.

The Member's Room in the south-east has a boarded roof on trusses. Number 1 Committee Room north of centre has wall panelling and beams on brackets.

The Council Chamber by Thomas Meakin Lockwood is an enclave of the Jacobean Revival in a High-Gothic Hôtel de Ville, with oak panelling and Corinthian pilasters to the west gallery, which has access from Princess Street via the stair turret. Two stone fireplaces have putti serving as atlantes to support the mantels and carved oak overmantels bearing the arms of the Earl of Chester and the pre-1974 arms of the City of Chester. The carved dado rail is at door lintel level. The ceiling has a deep plaster frieze moulded with a pattern of foliage, figures and cartouches, a large coved cornice, and panels of plaster on four oak trusses with carved brackets resting on good sandstone corbels in the form of birds. Four ornate chandeliers hang from the ceiling. Beneath the gallery is inscribed: "B.C. ROBERTS, MAYOR 1896-7: J.F.LOWE, SHERIFF: THE COUNCIL CHAMBER RESTORED AFTER THE FIRE ON THE 27TH MARCH, 1897, AND, WITH OTHER IMPROVEMENTS, COMPLETED IN 1898: J.G.HOLMES, MAYOR 1897-8: J.W.HUKE, SHERIFF."

The composition of the Town Hall, with its tall helm spire, provides a satisfying focal point in the townscape. The stair hall and the Council Chamber are pleasing features of a good and little altered interior.