Guildhall Including Great Hall, Assize Courts And Former City Treasury

Guildhall including Great Hall, Assize Courts and former City Treasury

The Guildhall is a distinguished civic building constructed between 1870 and 1874, designed by the Plymouth architectural practice Norman and Hine, winners of a design competition judged by Alfred Waterhouse. Edward William Godwin provided artistic direction. The north front features freestanding statuary and carving by H Hems, with relief allegorical panels by Boulton of Cheltenham and additional carving by Trevenan of Plymouth. The building was reduced to a shell during World War II bombing; the section containing the Municipal Offices was subsequently demolished, while the remainder was re-roofed, restored and reopened in 1959.

The building is constructed of granite and Plymouth limestone with freestone dressings. The main Guildhall has a steep dry slate roof behind a parapet with moulded and carved cornice, whilst the aisle roofs are of shallower pitch with simple eaves entablature.

The building comprises a long rectangular main block with two attached ranges. The East range, formerly the City Treasurer's Department and now used as a restaurant, displays determined early Gothic styling with French influence. The West range features a tall south-west tower and a squat north-west tower; these are early Gothic in style except for the towers themselves, which now appear more Italian in inspiration having lost their original steeply-pitched two-tier roofs.

The main elevations are two storeys high. The Guildhall's north front is symmetrical with seven bays, flanked to the left by the three-bay East range; a four-bay west front also faces the square. The north front has a central pointed-arched porch with three moulded orders over squat nook shafts with carved capitals, topped by a steep gable bearing the coat of arms and flanked by a parapet with moulded entablature and carved dogs at the ends. The aisles have moulded plinth buttress cornices halfway up the panels with intermediate buttresses surmounted by paired squat square attached columns with carved capitals and flanking carved figures. Set back behind the aisle roof are seven strongly Gothic bays, each featuring steep crocketed gables with crocketed finials over pointed arches framing rose-window tracery and paired lights with plate tracery. Slender buttresses topped by pinnacles divide the bays. Corbelled round turrets with open arcaded and traceried bellcotes with steep conical roofs terminate either end. The west front has string courses dividing the floors and the different stages of the towers. Three first-floor pointed-arched two-light windows with plate tracery sit above two widely-spaced string courses; at ground floor, three post-1954 entrance doorways feature serpentine-vaulted hoods. The south-west octagonal tower has a pointed-arched doorway to its left-hand corner angle, with a small window above between strings and two more to the right; a taller window rises above the second small window above another pair of strings. The upper stage displays triple-pointed lights to each side with turned mullion shafts and carved capitals, moulded parapet entablature, and a steep conical roof. The exceptionally tall five-stage tower on the north-west has a doorway similar to the north entrance but with only two orders, with paired segmental-arched doorways within framing a Madonna and Child statue with carved tympanum above. Lancets sit above the doorway with two slit ventilators to each stage above. The tall two-tier upper stage features triple lancets to each side (one only at the rear) and a machicolated cornice below a 20th-century belvedere at the top. A square-plan stair turret occupies the rear of the tower.

The interior of the East range survived the Blitz and retains its original character with beamed and coffered ceilings and timber-panelled walls. The remainder of the building was completely gutted in 1940–1 and rebuilt during 1954–9. The main entrance is on the west side, where the projecting serpentine hood continues into the entrance lobby as a coffered ceiling with three tympani at the east end containing semi-abstract sculpted panels representing aspects of the city and its surroundings. Steps lead to the main entrance hall, which is double-height with galleries to all four sides supported by polished serpentine-clad columns of star-shaped plan. A black and white marble staircase in the centre leads to the gallery and main hall beyond. Behind the staircase, the lobby and stairs to the lower guildhall feature mural decorations by Wyn George of Plymouth depicting famous Plymouth sons and the city's maritime history. The upper entrance hall has a ceiling coffered in hexagonal panels, with those over the staircase being glazed. The gallery balustrade is steel with a wooden handrail and padded leather panels bearing the city's coat of arms. The main hall occupies the upper part of the original single hall space. It is rectangular with seven bays and a shallow segmental-vaulted ceiling, the centre section lower than the sides, which feature plaster reliefs by David Weeks depicting the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Three large 1950s chandeliers hang from the ceiling, with mahogany panelling below the window sills and a timber sprung floor. Above the entrance is a large segment-headed alcove with tiered seating. The hall's windows are those from the Victorian Guildhall, re-glazed with scenes of Plymouth's history created in the "sculpt-art" technique by F H Coventry, an experimental 1950s method involving diamond-cut images infilled with colour. A raised dais occupies the east end.

Following the devastating bombing of World War II, the architects Paton Watson and Patrick Abercombie envisaged the Guildhall as the focal point of a Beaux Arts-planned reconstruction of Plymouth, with the tower anchoring a central civic axis. In 1951, a single council vote reprieved the building from demolition, establishing it as the symbol of Plymouth's rebuilding and as the most significant surviving structure from the bombed city centre. It was amongst the very few damaged buildings to be restored rather than rebuilt. The City Architect H J W Stirling, appointed in 1951, masterminded the design of the new civic area. The Guildhall's restoration, undertaken from 1951 to 1959, involved stabilising the original fabric and constructing new roofs, entrances and interior spaces.

The building is significant as a distinguished example of civic Gothic Revival architecture combining Northern French Gothic styling with an Italian campanile tower in the manner of medieval European civic buildings. Its combination of restored 19th-century exterior with entirely modern 1950s interior philosophy is nationally important, representing a rare and unusually rich unaltered Festival of Britain interior scheme in its use of purely decorative art and characteristically whimsical atmosphere. The striking tower serves as a landmark within the city.