The Guildhall

LOOE

SX2453 FORE STREET, East Looe 857-1/4/14 (West side) 17/09/73 The Guildhall

GV II

Guildhall with police cells. 1877. MATERIALS: coursed slatestone rubble with freestone dressings, chamfered to openings; steep dry slate roofs with projecting eaves; clock tower with freestone machicolated cornice and very steep pyramidal roof with central weather vane and hipped dormer with finial to each face; rubble lateral stacks. PLAN: large irregular plan with principal deep hall range right of the clock tower and range set back left of clock tower. EXTERIOR: Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys: lower range with hipped roof left of tall unbuttressed straight tower and coped gable end of hall range on the right. Left-hand range has pair of round-arched lights over 2 single lights. Tower has pair of transomed arched lights over pointed-arched doorway; above this a pair of small square-headed lights and central single light above; at the top a clockface (1880) (also to other sides). Hall range has central ground-floor buttress; flanking pointed-arched windows; trio of round-arched lights to 1st floor and glazed central gable ventilator. Right-hand return is 5 bays with lancets on sill string to 1st floor, some with leaded glazing; pointed arched openings to ground floor; window to central bays with recessed aprons; pointed arched doorway on the left with original pair of 5-panel doors and flat-headed doorway on the right. Ground floor windows are 4-light, transomed and with 3-panes per light plus glazed tympana with similar sized panes. Left-hand return is 3-window range with single-light flat-headed windows to 1st floor; corbelled stack to 1st-floor left over 2 squat segmental-arched cell windows with fixed lights with glazing bars and horizontal iron security bars. Doorway, right of centre with original pair of 5-panel doors and wide opening, now glazed at far right, both with segmental arches. Rear has projecting gable end of hall similar to front end on left, hipped wing on right with 2 pointed lights with coloured leaded glazing; small single-light left of these and quadrant corner to link with 2 similar flat-headed lights with leaded coloured glass. Ground floor extended C20. INTERIOR: chamfered cross beams and axial beams to ground floor; 1st floor not inspected. Built to replace the earlier guildhall in Higher Market Street (qv), following the abolition of the West Looe Coporation. (Kelly's Directories: Cornwall: 1906-: 192).

Listing NGR: SX2550353400