Hyde Town Hall

Hyde Town Hall stands on Market Place as a testament to the town's incorporation as a municipal borough in 1881. The building was constructed between 1883 and 1885 to designs by James William Beaumont, a prominent Manchester architect who later won the competition for the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. A substantial extension was added in 1913 to expand the civic facilities. The foundation stone of the original building was laid on 30 June 1883, with the clock and bells in the tower presented by Joshua Bradley, a local man who had risen from child factory worker to councillor.

Construction and Materials

The town hall is built of red brick laid in English bond with sandstone dressings. The roofs are covered in slate with brick stacks and red ridge tiles. The walls feature a stone basement plinth with bands of rustication, brick pilasters topped by stone ball finials, stone entablatures with relief swags, and brick parapets with stone coping.

Layout and Plan

The original 1883-5 building comprises a long range fronting Market Street, with a corridor running the length of each floor on the rear, off which offices open to the north-east. A central wing to the rear contains part of the main staircase, whilst a southern wing along Corporation Street houses the council chamber on the first floor with an adjacent mayor's parlour in the main range. The basement contains a single holding cell and a former strong room, served by a separate staircase.

The 1913 extension provides a large first-floor public hall built over the rear yard, with an entrance and stair hall off Corporation Street. In the south corner of the complex stands a former police station on the ground floor with a former magistrates' court (which served as the police or petty sessions court until 1949) on the first floor. Attached to the north-west side of the police station is a block of ground-floor and basement cells with a narrow basement exercise yard. The north-west range contains various rooms and lavatories on the ground floor of the west corner.

Market Street Elevation

The principal elevation facing Market Street rises two storeys over a basement and extends eleven bays along the ground floor. The two outermost bays at each end project forward to form pavilions with hipped roofs topped by finials, the right-hand one carrying a weather vane. Tall ribbed stacks punctuate the roofline—one to each outer wall and two ridge stacks.

The sixth bay contains the central entrance, above which rises a tall six-stage clock tower. The main entrance doorway is round-headed with a stone surround featuring wide pilasters with fluted capitals and giant curved brackets supporting a balcony. The brackets rest on an entablature with relief carved swags to the frieze. Panels of decorative relief carving are set into the front face of the brackets and spandrels. The double doors each have ten fielded panels, with a fanlight above containing leaded stained glass.

The clock tower projects slightly above the entrance, with pilasters and stone banding and entablatures dividing it into stages. The second stage has a balcony with turned balusters and a stone mullion and transom window with a broken pediment containing the borough coat of arms. The fifth stage displays circular clock faces set in moulded stone frames on each elevation. The tower is crowned by an octagonal cupola with a louvred arcade containing a set of bells, topped by an octagonal dome with a finial.

The first floor features three stone oriel windows with moulded corbels—one between bays one and two, and others in bays four and eight. The left oriel lights the mayor's parlour. Its corbel rests on a pilaster topped by a stone panel with a relief carved borough coat of arms and includes a band of undercut foliage. The mullion and transom window has a stone parapet with turned balusters, a central relief carved panel and a scrolled pediment. Two narrow transom windows flank each oriel, with a mullion and transom window in bays ten and eleven.

The ground-floor windows are four-light mullion and transom windows. All windows have stone frames. Those on the first floor have leaded upper lights, and the lower lights of the windows in bays one to three have leaded margin lights. The ground-floor windows to the right of the main entrance have "BOROUGH TREASURER" etched across the bottom of the lower lights. The basement windows have rounded corners.

Corporation Street Elevation

The three right-hand bays of the Corporation Street elevation form part of the original building and have similar wall and ridge stacks. A central oriel has a similar stone parapet and scrolled pediment, with a brick pediment above containing terracotta relief detailing with a panel dated AD 1884. Flanking the oriel are six-light mullion and transom windows with leaded upper lights and margin lights. The ground floor has a six-light and a four-light mullion and transom window, with a doorway with overlight in the third bay alongside a narrow adjacent window.

To the left stands the 1913 extension, similarly detailed but plainer than the original building. Four projecting bays have a triangular pediment over the two central bays with a circular window. On the ground floor are two double doorways with a granite foundation stone dated 1913 between them. The windows have stone mullion and transom frames, those on the first floor with triangular pediments. Abutting this is the three-bay gable wall of two storeys and an attic. The ground-floor central window has been altered to form a doorway and window, with an original doorway in the third bay with overlight and panelled double doors.

Water Street and Other Elevations

On Water Street stands the former police station and magistrates' court, rising two storeys over six bays. The fourth bay contains a doorway with a stone surround and triangular pediment with the date 1913 inscribed on the lintel. Mullion and transom stone-framed windows occupy the other bays. The left gable wall has a first-floor Diocletian-type window. Abutting this is a single-storey and basement cell block of three bays. Two small cell windows with metal bars occupy bays one and two, with a doorway fitted with a six-panel door and four-panel overlight in the third bay. To the rear is the first-floor public hall with round-headed windows over the yard, with an entrance adjacent to the cell block.

To the left of the entrance is the three-bay side elevation of a two-storey block on Greenfield Street. Originally fitted with two four-light mullion and transom windows on each floor, the window in the first bay on the ground floor has been converted to a doorway, with an original doorway in the third bay.

The Greenfield elevation dates from 1913. This range comprises nine bays of two tall storeys and four bays of two lower storeys at the right-hand end. The façade projects slightly from the fifth bay. Bays five to nine form a symmetrical arrangement with a hipped roof and triangular pediment over the three central bays and a doorway in each of the outer bays. Original doorways also exist in bays two, eleven and fourteen.

Interior of Original Building

The main entrance and staircase hall features ground and first-floor arcades of four round-headed arches with pink granite columns with composite capitals. A central staircase rises in a single flight to a half-landing, where two similar columns support an entablature beam above a black and white chequered floor. The staircase then returns in two outer flights to the first floor. Above the half-landing entablature beam hangs a horizontal painting executed in the 1950s by Harry Rutherford, depicting local buildings and people. It is fixed to the wall and specifically designed to fit the space, being the exact width of the wall and height between the entablature beam and ceiling architrave.

Over the staircase is a square, coved, coffered ceiling with a large multi-pane roof light containing stained glass and a circular ventilator. Circular and round-headed windows to both sides contain coloured floral and geometric patterned leaded glass. At the head of the stairs on the first-floor landing are two round-headed tympana with relief borough coats of arms and the date 1884.

To the right is the corridor leading to the mayor's parlour and the former council chamber (now known as the Rutherford Room). The large double door has half-glazing of coloured leaded glass with a similar fanlight. The mayor's parlour has a fielded ceiling. The fireplace and half-panelled walls date from the 1930s.

The former council chamber has a barrel-vaulted and fielded ceiling, with windows including an oriel to both side elevations containing decorative glass.

The basement has a stone-flagged corridor, single holding cell and former strong room, originally served by a separate staircase which is now truncated.

Interior of 1913 Extension

The 1913 Corporation Street entrance and stair hall has green and cream faience tiling to the walls, white glass and brass half-globe hanging lights, and a coloured and leaded borrowed light over the stairs. At the head of the stairs is a pair of double doors with half-glazing of textured and coloured leaded glass.

The large public hall (Hyde Hall) has a depressed-arch ribbed ceiling, a stage, white glass globe and brass chandeliers, balconies to the side and rear, round-headed windows to each side, and a sprung floor.

The former first-floor magistrates' court has a barrel-vaulted ceiling, brass chandeliers, panelling, plasterwork swags and coloured glass swags, a dog-leg staircase and a narrow public staircase, both with brown faience dado tiling.

Subsidiary Features

In front of the original building are four raised flowerbeds enclosed by low brick walls with stone coping topped by low iron fencing set between stone piers. The fencing is set in stone kerbs in front of the basement areas.

Later History

Hyde Town Hall has been recently refurbished to provide conference facilities in the principal rooms. The former police station has been converted to offices.