Town Hall

GREAT YARMOUTH

TG5207SW HALL QUAY 839-1/15/49 (North East side) 05/08/74 Town Hall

II*

Town hall. 1882. By JB Pearce after a competition. Red brick laid in Flemish bond and with terracotta details and sandstone dressings. Slate roofs. Built round a narrow courtyard. Queen Anne style. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys rising to 3 in the tower. Asymmetrical entrance front to the north-west. 7-window range. Rusticated ground floor and string courses between the floors. To the left are 3 bays of cross casements fitted with plate-glass horned sashes. The first-floor windows have 2 transoms. Small pediments in the balustraded parapet. These bays have paired pilasters right and left. The centre bay has one 3-light cross casement (with sashes) to each of its 3 floors. The right-hand 3 bays contain the round-arched principal entrance and two 2-light cross casements as before. Paired pilasters separate the first-floor cross casements which have the double transoms and now round heads. Swags in the parapet. A tower, square on plan, rises through 2 storeys to an ogeed lantern: open round arches over clock faces; glazed lantern. The south-west facade faces the river: symmetrical; 8 bays plus closing bays right and left. Cross casements fitted with sashes as before. Garlanded parapet and central segmental pediment. Hipped roofs with flat. INTERIOR: the entrance hall has pairs of panelled baluster piers on high plinths alternating with single piers running down the centre and attached as pilasters to the walls. Modified Ionic capitals. An Imperial staircase rises to the east: open string, twisted balusters over vases, moulded handrail. Pairs of painted glass windows light the stairs from a small internal courtyard. The whole of the west side of the first floor is given over to a ceremonial hall of 9 by 3 bays, the bays divided by fluted pilasters. The north wall has paired fluted columns and pilasters, the south wall has Corinthian columns set in front of pilasters. Heavy modillion cornice with leaf-trail decoration and deep coving below a barrel-vaulted roof with eared and shouldered raised panels. The south-east corner of the first floor was used until 1990 as a magistrates court with a complete set of fittings from 1882. Panelled bench and dock, the latter with an internal staircase dropping to a secure room and side entrance on the ground floor. The council

chamber has a canopy at the west end and a gallery at the east end.

Listing NGR: TG5231307426