Old Town Hall

The Old Town Hall is a market building constructed in 1785 by Bernard Hartley I, who served as Surveyor of Bridges to the West Riding of Yorkshire. It incorporates a gaol at the rear and an assembly room above. The building is constructed of ashlar sandstone with a Welsh slate roof.

The front elevation, facing the Market Place, is three storeys and three bays wide, with a lower two-storey gaol range extending to the rear right. The ground floor features chamfered rustication with three segmental arches; the left bay is open, the central bay contains a 20th-century glass shop front, and the right bay has an infill. A band forms the base for a giant order of fluted Tuscan pilasters, with one at each end and a pair in the centre bay, which is slightly advanced and pedimented. The first floor has sash windows with glazing bars, with a wrought-iron balcony in the centre. The outer bays have turned-baluster aprons below the windows. The second floor features six-pane casements with projecting sills. A modillion cornice runs along the top, and a flagpole stands in front of the pediment. A hipped roof covers the building, topped by a central wooden clock tower with a cupola, lead-covered dome, and weather vane.

The rear elevation has a single bay visible, matching the front. The left return is finely rendered and scored to resemble ashlar, with two bays, both featuring open ground-floor arches. Above them are single pilasters, without openings. A rear wing facing Bridge Street has a ground-floor door with a deep over-light and window, and two blind first-floor windows, all with voussoired wedge lintels.

The first-floor assembly room includes a white marble fireplace with a sleeping lion as the centrepiece of a fluted frieze and a later cast-iron grate. A magistrates' bench with a coat of arms on a plaque is located at the left end, flanked by consoles with a dentilled cornice. A segmental gallery above the bench has wrought iron railings. A full-size plaster cast of John Edward Carew’s bronze relief of ‘The Death of Nelson’ from the column in Trafalgar Square, London, is displayed at the right end, set behind cast-iron railings with spear finials and lotus standards.