Town Hall

Town Hall, Tewkesbury

Town hall and covered market space. Built in 1788 at a cost of approximately £1200, funded through "the liberality of Sir William Codrington, one of the late worthy representatives in Parliament". The building was enlarged to include a police station, cells and fire station around 1840, and altered in 1891 by Medland and Son. It is constructed of Cotswold ashlar, brick and slate roofs.

The original plan consisted of a first section set back from the High Street, with an open aisled corn market in front. The main building contained a ballroom across the full width at first-floor level, with a central room to the rear formed into a bold bow, all approached by a fine geometrical staircase in the north-west corner. This structure remains largely intact, including its original elevations, now fronted by a mid-19th-century market hall comprising one large single-storey aisled space with a glazed roof.

The three-bay street front features arched 12-pane sashes with radial bars and margin-panes on stone cills. Brackets are set in panels contained within a moulded arch with central decorated console keystones and pilaster responds. The central opening contains a pair of panelled doors beneath a radial fanlight, all set within a Roman Doric tetrastyle temple front, with the outer columns as square responds and a full entablature supporting a steep pediment that contains a clock and supporting figures. This is set forward from a short section of plain wall with an attic, and a central arched stone bell turret with a low pedimented capping. Stone urns flank the central attic.

Behind the market hall, the 18th-century ashlar frontage of the main building is partly concealed but retains, on three sandstone steps with nosings, an open screen of four Doric columns to wide openings with a flat entablature. Above the market hall roof sits the pedimented ashlar front with three large sashes, the central one brought down to floor level to serve as access to the former balcony. The pediment has a moulded stone coping, and the gable ends are coped in brick-on-edge. Three chimney stacks, all cropped, are positioned two on the rear slope of the roof and one at the ridge.

The rear elevation is in brickwork, featuring a full-height canted hipped bay in two storeys with large 12-pane sashes; the bay itself has 4-pane sashes and 16-pane sashes at ground floor, with a small 9-pane central sash to the bay where a doorway formerly existed. All openings feature good brick voussoirs, with a three-brick string course below the blocking and a coped parapet. To the left, a panelled door in a pedimented doorcase, partly concealed by later additions, provides access to the staircase. At the right-hand end, a very narrow full-height service wing projects boldly forward.

The interior of the early building retains many original fielded-panel doors in moulded architraves. The first-floor ballroom is simply detailed, with a fireplace, dado panelling, cornice, and two Rococo mirrors. The centre back room, or Mayor's Parlour, features a fine moulded cornice, dado panelling, an Adamesque fire surround, a six-panel decorated door, and embossed wallpaper depicting local views. The corresponding ground-floor room was formerly the Court Room and is ceiled with a grid of deep plain plastered beams. The geometrical stone staircase, approached through a plain arch on a stone-flagged floor, has a plain iron balustrade with swept rail. The stone stair continues down to the basement, which has barred openings to former cells. The market hall contains an inset timber-panelled and glazed lobby surmounted by a clock turret. The five-bay central glazed roof, hipped at the inner end, has composite queen-post trusses with iron rods on deep longitudinal beams with panelled sides and intrados. The aisles are similarly roofed with composite trusses.

The building replaced an earlier town hall at The Cross and has a street front characteristic of mid-19th-century market buildings. The original frontage of the 1788 structure can just be seen from High Street above the pediment of the market building and is also handsomely detailed. Despite some ground-floor adaptation to current use, the interiors remain largely unchanged. The basement cells reflect the use of the building by the local police from 1839 onwards.