Town Hall (Formerley Wigan And District Mining And Technical College) And Railings

This building began as a technical college, later becoming a town hall. It was built between 1901 and 1903 by Briggs and Wolstenholme. Constructed of warm red brick in an English garden wall bond, with matching terracotta dressings and green slate roofs, it occupies a large rectangular footprint on an island site. The architectural style is Flemish Baroque.

The building has a basement, two main floors, and an attic, with a symmetrical five-bay facade (2:2:1:2:2 windows). It features a gabled central section and slightly projecting gabled wings. The basement is faced with terracotta tiling. There is a moulded cornice to the ground floor, a frieze with egg-and-dart enrichment, and a prominent modillioned cornice. The steeply pitched gables include kneelers and finials on the central gable, and open pediments framing colonnaded cupolas on the wings.

A wide flight of steps leads to a large segmental-headed archway with Art Nouveau wrought-iron gates, protected by a porch with blocked Ionic columns. The porch has a dentilled cornice and a segmental broken pediment framing a cartouche; the frieze originally featured raised lettering "MINING TECHNICAL COLLEGE". Above the archway is a transomed six-light window flanked by paired blocked Ionic columns. The central gable contains a round-headed transomed six-light window with a pilastered architrave and triple keystone. Ground floor windows are round-headed one-light windows, while the first floor has two-light mullioned windows with keyed oculi in broken segmental pediments above. Attic dormers are two-light with ogee-shaped pediments. The wings have wide, deeply recessed segmental-headed six-light windows on the ground floor and transomed tripartite windows on the first floor, framed by panelled Ionic pilasters. The left return, facing Hewlett Street, includes a six-bay colonnade of blocked Ionic columns and tall double-transomed windows.

The interior remains uninspected.

The basement area is protected by Art Nouveau railings with square banded piers to gateways, flanking the front entrance and at each end of the sides.

The building forms a group with the Municipal Offices on the north side of Hewlett Street, together representing the most impressive buildings in Wigan town centre.