Town Hall

Town Hall. Built in 1909, with later 20th-century alterations and an extension. Designed by Bradshaw and Gass, architects of Bolton, for the Farnworth Urban District Council. Constructed of smooth red brick with ashlar sandstone dressings, featuring a central cupola and a hipped roof covered in slate. The style is Free Classical.

The front (south-west) elevation is symmetrical, with a projecting, pedimented three-bay entrance and recessed three-bay flanking ranges. A single-bay addition, also set back, extends the building on the left-hand side. The entrance doorway is within a semi-circular open porch, accessed by a flight of steps. The porch has a V-jointed masonry panel incorporating the doorway and, above, a three-light mullioned window flanked by single lights. Set within a wide pediment above the window is a Diocletian window with flanking ashlar pilasters. An attenuated keystone to the central window connects with carved enrichments of the band course above. Pilasters emphasise the corners, and tripartite windows with glazing bar sashes are on each side of the porch. The brick flanking ranges feature two-light windows with paired glazing bar sashes, set between shallow pilasters. Each range has a segmental pediment above a moulded cornice. A carved stone panel displaying the District Council's Coat of Arms sits below the pediment on the left-hand side. The later 20th-century extension replicates the detailing of the main range.

The interior has undergone significant late 20th-century remodelling, but retains a double return principal staircase at the end of the entrance hall, featuring stone stairs, moulded stone balusters and a handrail. Massive ground floor terminal piers have scrolled buttresses and late 20th-century lamp fittings. A stair window contains contemporary stained glass, including the Coat of Arms and other heraldic motifs. The former council chamber on the first floor has lost its furniture, but retains rectangular wall panelling, double doorways with segmental pediment door heads, and a panelled wall screen to the former dais, with a broken segmental pediment above a frieze bearing the Coat of Arms.

The Town Hall is part of a notable early 20th-century civic group designed for the Farnworth Urban District Council, and forms a group with the nearby Library and Baptist Church.