Chadderton Town Hall and associated walls and walled garden, Middleton Road, Chadderton

Chadderton Town Hall and Associated Walls and Walled Garden

Chadderton Town Hall was built in 1912-13 by the Oldham architectural practice of Taylor & Simister. It is constructed in orange brick with sandstone dressings and slate roofs, designed in an Edwardian Baroque style.

The building is set back from Middleton Road to the south, with a walled rectangular garden in front containing a listed war memorial. The garden is bisected by a path and steps leading up to the central entrance doorway. The town hall itself is rectangular in plan, arranged around a central light well, with two storeys and a partial basement in the front and side ranges.

The front range contains an entrance hall with a double-return staircase and a large stair landing, with the former council chamber on the first floor. The side ranges contain offices opening off long corridors on both floors. The rear range has offices and storage rooms on the ground floor opening off a long corridor, and a ballroom on the first floor. The ballroom has a separate street entrance at the east end, opening into an entrance hall with two flights of stairs, though it also interconnects internally. The ballroom features an east gallery and a west stage.

The main south elevation facing Middleton Road comprises seven bays and two storeys over a basement. It has a projecting stone plinth, stone quoins, entablature, and parapets, with a hipped slate roof behind topped by a tall brick ridge stack with a stone cap on the left-hand side. The wide central bay projects slightly and is faced in stone. On the ground floor is a raised round-headed doorway with four semicircular steps and a semi-circular stone porch with Ionic columns, entablature, and a first-floor balustraded balcony. The entrance has double decorative iron gates opening into a porch with green and white glazed wall tiles and terrazzo flooring. The inner double doors are half-glazed over fielded panels, flanked by timber pilasters, with a segmental-headed overlight containing small panes of leaded glass. On the first floor is a tall round-headed window of stained glass with a glazed door opening onto the balcony. There is a stepped parapet with a green dome containing a clock lantern. The windows to each side of the central bay are set in stone bands; those on the ground floor have segmental heads with giant keystones, and those on the first floor have flat heads. The window frames are hung sashes with six panes over lower plate glass panes with etching. On the ground floor the left-hand window is etched 'Medical Officer', with a coat of arms in bay two, and 'Surveyor' in bays five, six, and seven. On the first floor there is a coat of arms in bay five.

The secondary public elevation on the east side facing Garforth Street comprises a two-storey, six-bay range with the left-hand bay projecting slightly. At the right-hand end is the projecting four-bay gable entrance of the ballroom. The detailing is similar to the main elevation with stone plinth, quoins, entablature, and parapets, with two brick and stone ridge stacks. The windows similarly have segmental heads on the ground floor and flat heads on the first floor. On the ground floor the window in bay two is etched 'Surveyor', and on the first floor the windows in bays two and three are etched 'Clerk', with a coat of arms in bay five and 'Accountant' in bay six. The ground-floor window in bay three has been converted into a doorway beneath the six-pane upper sash, which serves as an overlight, with an access ramp built in front. The gable entrance has a raised triangular pediment over with stone banding and coping. The slightly projecting outer bays flank a raised pair of double doors on the ground floor, with a flight of steps and a doorcase of stone pilasters supporting an entablature. The doors are panelled with upper lights containing decorative timber glazing bars. The outer bays have paired square windows. On the first floor are two hung-sash flat-headed windows, with smaller outer windows in decorative stone frames. The gable has a large Diocletian window with a giant keystone. All windows have small-pane leaded glazing.

The main entrance hall contains a Tuscan-columned screen opening into the main hall with a central staircase rising in a single flight to a half-landing before splitting into two flights with quarter-pace landings. The staircase has stone balustrading with ramped stone handrails, and geometric stained-glass patterning to the three stair windows. The entrance hall and first-floor landing have terrazzo flooring and moulded cornices to the coffered ceilings. The former council chamber on the first floor is reached from the stair landing through two sets of double doors with moulded timber architraves and entablatures; the doors have fielded panelling with etched glass to the upper half containing geometric glazing bars, and Art Nouveau styled brass door handles. The centre of the room has a shallow, enriched pendentive domed ceiling supported on four sets of paired Ionic columns, with lower barrel-vaulted bays at each end having dentil cornices. The lower sections of the walls have fielded timber panelling with framed panels above. The central round-arched window displays Chadderton's original unofficial coat of arms. Many rooms on both ground and first floors have moulded or dentil cornices and retain original doors, the majority with three rows of fielded panels and moulded eared architraves with pulvinated entablatures. The corridors have terrazzo flooring. The cellar has segmental-arched doorways with timber plank doors. One room retains a cast-iron range.

The ballroom has a barrel-vaulted ceiling with ribs carved as bay-leaf garlands rising from pilasters, and panels framed by bay-leaf garlands. At the east end is a bow-fronted gallery lit by the Diocletian window, with two sets of double doors beneath giving access from the two flights of stairs leading up from the separate entrance hall. There are also two sets of double doors in the long inner wall opening into the first-floor corridors of the side ranges. The doors are similar to those of the council chamber. At the west end is a stage with an enriched proscenium arch and barrel-vaulted ceiling. The ballroom, gallery, and stage are enriched with relief plaster urns, festoons, swags, and wreaths.

In front of the main south façade is a rectangular garden with low brick walls having chamfered stone coping and square brick piers with stone caps. The original iron railings have been removed; new railings have been installed along the front and east side. In the centre is a wide stepped pathway flanked by low stone walls curving between outer and inner piers. The piers have pyramidal stone caps. An inner flight of steps has low brick and stone balustrade walling with piers topped by stone ball finials. Similar brick and stone coped walls with square brick piers and stone caps are attached to both sides of the main building façade; the left-hand wall returns towards the road with a low stepped wall interspersed with piers. A similar wall with piers forms a forecourt to the ballroom entrance on Garforth Street.