Old Town Hall

The Old Town Hall in Great Dunmow is a Grade II listed building that originally served as offices, a Town Hall, and a Guild Hall. It dates back to the 15th century and has undergone later alterations. The structure is timber framed and plastered, with the timber frame exposed on the ground floor. It features a gabled peg tile roof topped with an off-centre, pyramid-roofed bell cupola. The building has two storeys, with the upper floor raised in the 19th century and jettied towards the west and south.

The front facing the Market Place includes a large 20th-century oriel window on brackets on the first floor, which has hexagonal leaded lights. Above this, there are 19th-century bargeboards and a clock face. The ground floor has an entrance door in a lean-to on the north side and a wide 20th-century mullioned and transomed window. At the southeast corner, there is a heavy dragon post and bracket. The south elevation features three large 20th-century mullioned and transomed oak windows with hexagonal leaded lights, situated above a series of 20th-century leaded lights that are mostly fixed between the studs.

Inside, the building reveals three bays of heavy timber framing, with chamfered bridging joists and a dragon beam. The posts have slight shoulders and arch braces. The first floor was raised and converted in the 19th century to create a meeting room with a spectators gallery. This space features a 19th-century roof structure of Jacobean character, complete with false arch-braced hammerbeam trusses and drop pendants. Local tradition holds that this building was formerly the Guild Hall of St. John.