The Old Town Hall

The Old Town Hall is a building located on High Street in Falmouth, originally constructed as a Congregational chapel around 1710. It features painted brick, likely over rubble, with rusticated stucco quoins, Gibbs surrounds, and a moulded parapet cornice. The roof is hipped, covered with asbestos slate and dry slate. The building has a double-depth plan that includes an 18th-century rear wing.

The front facade is symmetrical with two tall single-storey windows and a central doorway. The round-arched windows have glazing bars and spoked fanlight heads. The wide flat-arched doorway contains 20th-century glazed doors and a fanlight, with a trace of the original pediment in plaster above. The rear of the building has at least one 18th-century sash window with thick glazing bars and an overlight also featuring thick glazing bars.

Inside, the building retains its original coved and moulded plaster ceiling, which has a large carved central feature in deep relief. The staircase includes reused 18th-century turned balusters, and there is 18th-century dado panelling along with a niche supported by consoles, although this was hidden by furniture at the time of the survey. A simple wooden chimney-piece is present, with a later 19th-century iron register grate.

Historically, this building was first used as a Congregational chapel until a larger chapel was built in 1715. Martin Lister Killigrew purchased the original chapel and presented it to the Corporation, which then used it as a town hall until a new purpose-built town hall was constructed on the Moor. This structure is likely the second oldest purpose-built nonconformist chapel in Cornwall, with only one Quaker meeting house in Marazion predating it and another in Kea of a similar age.