Old Town Hall

TORQUAY

SX9163 UNION STREET 885-1/17/289 Old Town Hall 10/01/75

GV II

Old Town Hall. 1851-2 to the designs of Mr Dixon, the town surveyor. Local grey Torquay limestone, brought to course, with rock-faced quoins and Bathstone dressings; main roofs concealed behind parapets, tiled hipped roof to tower; stacks with stone shafts. Italianate style. PLAN: On a wedge-shaped site between Abbey Road and Union Street with entrances both sides. 3-stage clock tower facing down Fleet Street. EXTERIOR: 2 and 3 storeys. Principal 3-bay elevation to Union Street plus one bay to tower to left. Stone eaves brackets to cornice with parapet. Moulded string to first floor; platband to second floor. Centre bay broken forward and pedimented. Segmental-headed doorways to each bay on the ground floor. 3 first-floor windows with stone architraves, pediments on consoles and balustrades below the sill, centre window tripartite. 3 first-floor windows with stone architraves and consoles. 2-storey block to left with balustrade with round-headed arcade. 1:3:1-bay rear (Abbey Road) elevation in similar but plainer style. Dramatic 3-stage Italianate clock tower with shallow hipped roof with moulded projecting eaves on stone brackets; string courses. One-light and paired round-headed windows with stone architraves; doorway on Abbey Road side; oculus on Fleet Street side; clock faces in stone frames. Blue tiled Abbey Road street sign with white letters fixed to building. INTERIOR: Partly disused. Rear section in use as restaurant; historic features either removed or concealed. Very prominent position and one of the earliest examples in Torquay of the use of the Italianate tower, used later on many of the larger 1860s and 1870s villas. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Cherry B: Devon: London: 1952-1989: P.858).

Listing NGR: SX9168663938