The Town Hall

SO 3288 BISHOP'S CASTLE C.P. HIGH STREET (west side)

12/52 The Town Hall - 28/7/50 GV II*

Town Hall. Circa 1765 with mid- to late-C19 remodelling. Red brick (English bond) with sandstone ashlar base and dressings (refaced with cement render in C19), and slate roof, hipped to south. Rectangular plan. Basement and 2 storeys. South front: rusticated basement and end pilaster strips, ground floor moulded impost band, moulded stone cornice, and central triangular pediment; central wooden cupola consisting of square base with clocks. to south, east and west, cornice, and octagonal bell-stage with Doric columns, frieze, cornice and ogee lead cap with weathervane; flagpole at rear. First floor Venetian window with plain architrave, ground floor round-arched window with late-C19 cast iron glazing bars, moulded architrave, and keystone; 2 circular basement windows with wrought-iron grilles. 5 bay east and west fronts; first floor glazing bar sashes with flush frames and gauged brick heads with keystones, second and fourth to east and that at right to west, blind; ground floor round-arched windows with fluted keystones, continuous moulded impost band, and partly blocked with late-C19 cast-iron glazing bars above; boarded double doors to north in east and west fronts; public lavatories in former lock-up in basement to south. Interior: entrance hall to north with office above, and ground floor hall to south with Courtroom (probably former Council Chamber) above; C18 L-shaped staircase in entrance hall with landing, open string, heavy turned balusters (2 per tread) moulded ramped handrail, and columnular newel posts; possibly C18 'bench' in Courtroom, 2 bays with pilasters and raised panels. Bishop's Castle was a notorious 'rotten borough' before the 1832 Reform Bill and was the smallest in England at its demise in 1967; the Town Clerk's office in the Town Hall contains many old prints of the town, some commemorative items, such as clocks etc., and also many of the old borough records. B.O.E., p.76; Michael Moulder, A Shell Guide to Shropshire, Faber and Faber, 1972.

Listing NGR: SO3234488950