Former Town Hall And Attached Former Fire Station

FALMOUTH

SW8032NE THE MOOR 843-1/7/204 Former Town Hall and attached former 23/01/73 Fire Station (Formerly Listed as: THE MOOR Town Hall)

GV II

Town hall, later magistrates' court, and attached former fire station. 1864 by Reeves and Butcher at a cost of £4,000 to replace the one in the High Street (qv); in 1895 a fire station was added on the left. Stucco on masonry with slate roofs. PLAN: double-depth Town Hall originally had County Court office, registrar's office, high bailiff's office, judges' apartments and a large hall for magistrates' business. Fire station set back to left. Italianate style. EXTERIOR: Town Hall has channelled rustication and keyed segmental arches to ground floor; mid-floor entablature with guttae to architrave; quoin strips to 1st floor, recessed architraves (3 keyed ogee arches flanked by segmental arches) to 1st floor; parapet cornices to side bays; taller central bays broken forward with squat attic over sill band and grouped consoles to moulded eaves cornice; dry slate roofs, hipped over central bays; tall stuccoed stacks with modillions to moulded cornices: flanking central roof, at left-hand end and at rear right. Fire station has quoin strips, moulded 1st-floor string and segmental-arched windows, in recessed architraves to 1st floor; slate roof with projecting eaves. 2 storeys plus attic to central bays; symmetrical 1:3:1-bays except for extra quadrant entrance bay (to make central feature when seen approached down Killigrew Street) and doorway (instead of window) to left of central bays. Original doors and windows: horned sashes with margin panes; blind window over corner doorway; overlights with large panes and pairs of panelled doors. The curved corner doorway is the principal feature of the Town Hall with moulded architrave, dropped key, flanking Tuscan half-columns and dentilled cornice surmounted by the Royal Coat of Arms advertising the function of the building. 4-window-range right-hand return has similar details. Fire station is 4:1 bays; horned sashes plus 2 later horned sashes to altered ground floor on the right. INTERIOR of town hall retains some features of a C19 courtroom and a fine quality cantilevered stone staircase. (Kelly: Kelly's Directory of Devonshire and Cornwall: 1883-: 886; Cunningham, Colin: Victorian and Edwardian Architecture: 1981-: 265 AND 271).

Listing NGR: SW8066632924