Old Market Hall

Old Market Hall

Former market hall, now cinema and café as of 2004. Built in 1596-7, the building is attributed to Walter Hancocks (master mason), Roger Smith (joiner), and Richard Morris who oversaw the project. The designer remains unknown.

The building is constructed of red sandstone faced with squared and coursed Grinshill stone, under a clay tile-covered gabled roof.

The plan is elongated and cruciform, with short projecting wings to the west and east sides.

The two-storey, seven-bay exterior is designed in Classical Renaissance style. It features a moulded stone plinth and moulded string courses at ground and first-floor level, with the latter repeated to the capitals of the Tuscan columns. A continuous hood mould appears above the first-floor windows. The decorative parapet has reverse volutes.

The principal elevation to the west comprises a central single-bay wing flanked by three-bay arcades of Tuscan columns supporting semi-circular arches. Three four-light mullion and transom windows sit at first-floor level within these arcades. The projecting central bay has a semi-circular arch with three-quarter Tuscan columns either side, surmounted by a stone statue. Above the arch sits a stone carving of the Royal Coat of Arms of Elizabeth I in relief, rising above the sill of a seven-light mullion and transom window to the first floor. A three-light window occupies the gable.

The gabled north and south elevations feature offset diagonal buttresses and central semi-circular arches supported on Tuscan three-quarter columns. The south elevation has pairs of mullion and transom windows flanking a statue set in a stone niche with a decorative stone canopy above. A sun-dial is positioned to the left, with a three-light window to the gable. The north elevation follows the same arrangement as the south but the windows contain stained glass and flank a statue of Richard, Duke of York, brought from the medieval Welsh Bridge by order of the town mayor in 1771. Below the statue is a plaque naming the bailiffs in the year of construction. A 20th-century clock sits in the gable. The east elevation matches the west, though the wing is plainer and lacks the moulded plinth. Within the semi-circular arch is a lower arch-headed opening; the arch has been blocked with stone ashlar and modern brickwork to the lower arch.

The interior was not inspected in 2015. The ground floor is open. Ceiling beams spanning between the arcades have lambs tongue stops and are supported on early-19th-century iron brackets. A lift has been inserted to the west side and a stone staircase to the east. The first floor, now converted to café and cinema use, displays exposed late-16th-century roof trusses with two rows of through purlins, cusped wind braces to the roof panels, and ashlaring (short vertical timbers rising from an inner wall plate to the rafters). The roof trusses comprise a tie-beam truss with Queen posts, a collar and tie-beam truss with Queen posts, an open arch-braced collar truss with angled struts, and a double collar and tie-beam truss with lower king and queen struts.