Guildhall

The Guildhall is a town hall with origins in the late 17th century, significantly altered in 1769. It is constructed of red Flemish-bond brickwork, with stone quoins and dressings, and has a Welsh slate hipped roof behind parapets. The building is three storeys high, with cellars, and features two full-height canted bays.

The front elevation features a parapet with recessed panels. The canted bays contain double-hung sash windows with small panes, stone sills, and rubbed brick arches with keystones. A projecting stone cornice runs beneath the parapet, punctuated by stone bands indicating storey heights, and the corners are accentuated by stone quoins. A doorcase of 1769 is centrally positioned on the ground floor, featuring an open pediment supported by clustered shafts in a Batty Langley-style Gothic design. This doorcase encloses a fanlight and a six-panel door. Above the doorcase is an aedicule with a semicircular-headed open pediment, enclosing a 19th-century stained-glass window. On the second floor are the Royal Arms (Victoria), presented in painted plaster within a Baroque open double-curved pediment. The rear and lower portions of the flank elevations are of English bond brickwork, and a substantial 19th-century extension is attached to the rear.

The interior ground floor probably incorporates parts of a building from 1673 and may contain fabric of the former Bear Inn. Exposed spine beams and bridging joists are of softwood, with quadrant chamfers and run-out stops, characteristic of the earlier part of the 17th century. A Tuscan arcade, composed of three bays, opens onto the staircase, featuring dosseret blocks above the capitals, three-centred arches, and unusual bases likely dating to the late 17th century. One ground-floor room, formerly a prison, features late 18th-century boarding-clad walls with prisoner-incised graffiti depicting ships, a windmill, and a 'daisy' protective device. A fireplace within this room has a segmental relieving arch, a truncated mantel beam, and an 18th-century overmantel painting of figures. An elliptical painted timber arch, on panelled pilasters, is located between the entrance hall and the stairwell. The well staircase has turned balusters and console tread ends; the side walls are panelled with half-Tuscan columns at each level change.

The first-floor Council Chamber has 19th-century panelling and purpose-made fittings. An open screen of clustered shafted columns is either contemporary with or imitative of the doorcase. An internal Venetian window, positioned between the Council Chamber and stairwell, showcases an elliptical arched head, a heavy entablature, Doric pilasters, triple keystones, and a Gothic glazing pattern. Above the window is a plastered arch of radiating 'voussoirs,' and the staircase well is lined with ashlar.