The Secular Hall

The Secular Hall is a hall built in 1881 and designed by Larner Sugden for the Leicester Secular Society. It is a brick building with terracotta and stone facing to the ground floor, and tiled roofs. The building’s plan consists of a central hall block, two stories high with a large basement, with an attendant's apartment arranged around a small courtyard; an entrance range with ancillary rooms and offices is also present. It is constructed in a Free Flemish Renaissance style, and is three stories in height.

The front of the building, facing Humberstone Gate, is striking, featuring a tower to the right and a regular three-bay range to the left under a large interrupted gable. A tall, central, round-headed window rises through all upper floors, decorated with varied pilasters and a corbelled canopy with terracotta sunbursts to the soffit. A frieze above the lower lights bears the symbols of Libertas, Justicia and Veritas. Side bays feature corbelled canted oriels set within projecting, pedimented surrounds to the first floor, and small square windows to the second floor, also within projecting surrounds, with a frieze of swags. A recessed porch is situated under a wide four-centred arch, flanked by large two-light windows with original glazing bars. A carriage entrance is situated under a segmental arch to the left, with each ground-floor element divided by pilasters with terracotta busts in pedimented niches representing Voltaire, Thomas Paine, Robert Owen, Jesus and Socrates. The tower has two and three-light square-headed windows to all floors above ground level, topped by a tiled, pyramidal spire. A large, dramatic external stack is on the right return.

The interior contains many small rooms with simple, contemporary details. The upper hall is the most elaborate room, featuring an eight-bay false hammerbeam roof, balconies at both ends, and a dado which was originally made up of decorative tiles, and is now largely obscured. A committee of experts from the Tiles and Architectural Ceramics Society confirmed in October 2012 that these tiles are Dutch imports, and may have been donated by William Morris. Newspaper reports from 1881 identify Marks and the Durlacher brothers as tile suppliers – a firm noted among the first to import Dutch tiles to Britain.

The building holds historical interest as the first Secular Society hall in the world, and one of the few surviving in its original state outside of London. Secular societies were established as free-thinking, rationalist bodies, offering working people an alternative to Christian churches. Notable figures such as Kropotkin, Joseph McCabe, George Bernard Shaw and William Morris addressed meetings here, with Morris delivering his ‘Art and Socialism’ lecture for the first time at the Hall.