Jubilee Hall Kings Hall Town Hall

A civic complex built in three phases, comprising the Town Hall (1834 by Henry Ward, about 1801–1861/71), with wings completed in 1842 (north) and after 1850 (south). In 1910 to 1911, Thomas Wallis (1872–1953) and James Albert Bowden (1876–1949) extended the complex by adding a council chamber, associated suites of rooms, and the Kings Hall. The Jubilee Hall was created from the former assembly room in 1935. The modern civic centre offices added to the north-east in 1992 are not included in the listing.

Materials

The buildings are faced in sandstone ashlar, with brick to some inner returns and flat roofs.

Plan

The complex occupies a corner plot. The main town hall range fronts Glebe Street, whilst the Kings Hall and 1911 council range face Kingsway to the south. The buildings combine to cover a broadly rectangular area. Municipal offices occupy the ground floor of the main range on a corridor plan, with a broad spine corridor extending eastwards to the council chamber, committee rooms, and mayor's suite. Beyond this lies the Kings Hall, which occupies the whole of the western end of the plot.

Exterior

Glebe Street Elevation

The Glebe Street elevation is of ashlar, with multi-paned windows. It is of two storeys with attic and basement. The ground floor has rock-faced rustication, with ashlar above. The central section of three bays forms an entrance portico, with three archways to the ground floor beneath Ionic columns carrying a deep entablature and an elevated pediment. Three windows with shouldered architraves are set behind the columns. Steps rise under the portico to the former main entrance.

Flanking this central section are five-bay blocks, slightly set back, each with semi-circular windows to the ground floor and six-over-nine sashes above. At either end is a pedimented, three-bay block with similar fenestration, the window bays separated by Ionic pilasters, with the addition of attic windows.

Return Elevations

The return elevations are each of three wide bays. That to the north has a broad doorcase with engaged columns and carved wreaths to the frieze, below which is a just-visible ghost sign reading "POLICE STATION". The raised and fielded doors are studded. Otherwise the treatment is the same as the Glebe Street elevation, with the exception of a central tripartite window to the first floor. To the right are two bays of the 1911 extension: the first with two semi-circular arched windows to ground and first floors and an oculus above, and the second, a bay with differing floor heights, adjoining the link to the 1990s civic offices attached at this point.

Kingsway (South) Elevation

The return elevation to Kingsway (south) is of three bays with a heavy broken entablature to the central doorway, which has an architrave with pairs of Ionic shafts banded with rusticated blocks. The upper floor and blind attic are heavily articulated, with Ionic pilasters, moulded shoulder bands and architraves with keystones to the windows.

To the left lies the long elevation encompassing the principal entrance of the Kings Hall to the west, and the council chamber and associated rooms moving eastwards. The range is in a Mannerist style, with exaggerated details including swags and volutes, and extensive use of banded rustication. Starting at the western end stands a plain brick bay of the mid-20th century added for changing and sanitary facilities. The westernmost bay of the historic building is set well back, housing a stair to the gallery. Then five bays house the entrances to the Kings Hall, the central three bays contained beneath a pediment and advanced slightly. The broad, central door is set in a heavy surround beneath Ionic columns flanked by full-height archways. The outer doorways are enriched with heavily moulded architraves and pediments, one with a sign reading "KINGS HALL/ENTRANCE" set into the opening in its broken segmental pediment.

Moving eastwards is a long range of five bays which includes two bays housing the entrances to the council chamber and committee rooms. These have panelled doors set in heavy doorcases with exaggerated details, and oculi above. The window bays have semi-circular arched windows to the ground floor, and blind ashlar above, with a deeply moulded cornice. The extension terminates in a slightly recessed bay adjoining the earlier building, with an archway to the internal courtyard, which has a heavy volute and swags over, and an open peristyle with tall, Ionic columns above. The elaborate iron gates have date plaques for 1911.

Interior

Town Hall Range

The ground floor has rooms set to either side of a corridor which runs from end to end along the spine of the building, intersecting with the main foyer in the centre of the range. The interiors are highly decorative, with deep, foliate plasterwork cornices to the corridors and principal rooms, pilasters with Ionic volutes, doorcases with carved foliate decoration, moulded semi-circular arches with engaged Ionic columns, and some coloured glass. The corridor is lined floor to ceiling in most areas with figured glazed tile, including moulded dado, in colours of mustard, green and a rich brown. Some timber fire surrounds remain, in a matching classical style. There has been a degree of subdivision of some of the office spaces, with the introduction of lightweight partition walls.

The corridor extending westwards from the main foyer leads into the 1911 buildings, first reaching the broad, open-well stair with oversized newels and cast metal balustrades which rises via a landing with memorial stained glass windows to a wide landing. On one wall is mounted a glazed-tile memorial plaque recording the opening of the extension of the building.

Jubilee Hall

The entire central block of the first floor of the town hall range is occupied by the Jubilee Hall, which was refurbished in 1935 in an Art Deco style. The floors are clad in timber panelling with recesses for radiators, which have metal grille covers including the figures of pottery workers carrying their wares, against a background of stylised bottle kilns. The room has a sprung floor and a stage, and is top-lit by a flat, rectangular lantern.

The three full-height windows towards Glebe Street are set with stained glass depicting the heraldry of the city and its dignitaries. The central window is a memorial to Major Cecil Wedgwood, DSO, who died in the Battle of the Somme. To the south end of the range, the former offices have been converted to kitchens and a servery, though with some of the tile decoration surviving under paint. The northern end is still in use as offices.

Opposite the entrance to the Jubilee Hall, on the opposite side of the landing, is the 1911 Queen Elizabeth Room, which is extensively decorated with Mannerist plasterwork and carving to its doorcases, walls, domed ceiling and arched window reveals.

1911 Extension Rooms

The 1911 extension rooms are arranged off a central spine corridor running parallel to that in the main range, and an intersecting corridor, with a crush hall at the centre of the building where these two corridors meet. This crush hall has prodigious plasterwork decoration, paired Ionic columns and pilasters, and leaded transom glazing. The plan means that the corridors and many of the rooms are internal, and so are top-lit, the principal rooms by domed lanterns, and the corridors by a mixture of domes and rectangular lanterns. Ground-floor corridors and crush halls throughout the building are laid in patterns of cream and brown matte tiles.

The interiors are all in a Mannerist inspired style, with heavily moulded, deep section skirtings, cornices and elaborate door surrounds. The door surrounds all include painted legends announcing the name or function of the room to which they lead. The committee rooms have plasterwork decoration in foliate styles and dramatically domed lanterns. The members' rooms, smaller function room known as the Windsor Room and the Lord Mayor's suite all have similar decoration, with very deeply coved ceilings covered in moulded plasterwork detailing, deep cornices, moulded doorcases and timber details. Those with an external wall also have Diocletian windows set in the coving.

The council chamber is extensively decorated in the same style, with motifs carried across all the rooms in the range. The chamber retains its 1911 furnishing, with raked and curved benches with carved ends filling the main floor, and matching dais with seating. The mayor's seat has a segmental arched pediment on Ionic columns forming a shallow canopy.

Kings Hall

The Kings Hall's decorative scheme mirrors those of the principal spaces in the town hall extension. The hall is entered via a foyer with a barrel roof, with moulded decorative ribs springing from fancy pilasters, heavy cornices and mouldings. The former box office windows survive to either side of the central doors to the auditorium. Stairs to either side rise to the balcony seating, and continue to the gallery above. The landings above the foyer have three sets of doors to the auditorium and are highly decorated.

The auditorium has a deep barrel ceiling with extensive moulded plaster decoration, and eight Diocletian windows to each long elevation, set between the ribs of the ceiling, forming a clerestory above the balcony. The ribs spring from pilasters with moulded decoration. The balcony and gallery have fixed seating; the stalls area has no fixed seating and doubles as a dance floor. The stage is at the northern end of the building. Behind and below are technical spaces and dressing rooms. A long corridor runs the length of the building on either side, giving access to the auditorium on its long sides. Doorways in the external wall of the western corridor lead into the later-20th-century range of changing rooms and lavatories.

Subsidiary Features

The Glebe Street elevation has a coped, stone balustrade enclosing the basement area, the balusters resembling miniature Doric columns, with square newels at intervals.