Town Hall

TOWCESTER WATLING STREET EAST SP6948 13/158 No.86 (Town Hall) 19/08/76

GV II

Former Town Hall and corn exchange. 1865 by T.H. Vernon. Limestone ashlar, banded with ironstone, hipped Welsh slate roof with ornamental ridge tiles and wrought iron finials. Italianate style. 2 storeys and attic. 3-window range. Complex plan. Central doorway with round-arched head, and keyblock on foliated capitals with ears of wheat, flanked by pilasters with similar capitals supporting console brackets bearing deep hood. Pair of 2-light windows to ground floor with similar heads and capitals to middle piers, outer capitals with ivy leafs; timber tracery. Smaller round-arched windows to first floor of 2 lights to centre, 3 lights to left and right with pilasters outermost, red sandstone columns innermost, stiff-leaf capitals and sash windows. Chamfered plinth, first floor cornice, modiliioned eaves cornice, balustraded parapet and blank-arcaded stone stacks to angles. Centre and ends project slightly, with pediment to centre. Clock tower above with copper-clad belfry. 2-storey wing to rear right of white brick in Flemish bond with segmental-arched sash windows and side door with segmental-arched head with keyblock flanked by pilasters supporting pediment. Bay with door is pedimented. Interior: fine hall with composite pilasters, entablature with dentil cornice, coved arcaded vault to two sides with ornamental glazing to round windows. South end wall has tall round-arched panel with paterae to archivolt;2 small arches to north wall. Foundation stone laid by the Earl of Pomfret, September 8th, 1865. The builder was J. Wheeler. (Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.434).

Listing NGR: SP6935648651