Town Hall

The former Town Hall and corn exchange in Towcester was built in 1865 by T.H. Vernon. It is constructed of limestone ashlar, banded with ironstone, and features a hipped Welsh slate roof adorned with ornamental ridge tiles and wrought iron finials. The building is designed in the Italianate style and consists of two storeys and an attic, with a three-window range and a complex plan.

The central doorway has a round-arched head with a keyblock supported by foliated capitals featuring ears of wheat. This doorway is flanked by pilasters with similar capitals that support console brackets holding a deep hood. The ground floor has a pair of 2-light windows, which also have similar heads and capitals, with outer capitals decorated with ivy leaves and timber tracery. The first floor has smaller round-arched windows, with 2 lights in the center and 3 lights on the left and right, flanked by pilasters, with red sandstone columns and stiff-leaf capitals, along with sash windows.

Additional architectural features include a chamfered plinth, a first-floor cornice, a modillioned eaves cornice, a balustraded parapet, and blank-arcaded stone stacks at the corners. The central and end sections of the building project slightly, with a pediment above the central section. A clock tower rises above, featuring a copper-clad belfry.

At the rear right, there is a two-storey wing made of white brick in Flemish bond, which includes segmental-arched sash windows and a side door with a segmental-arched head, flanked by pilasters that support a pediment. The bay with the door is also pedimented.

Inside, the building boasts a fine hall with composite pilasters, an entablature with a dentil cornice, and a coved arcaded vault on two sides, featuring ornamental glazing in the round windows. The south end wall has a tall round-arched panel with paterae in the archivolt, and there are two small arches on the north wall. The foundation stone was laid by the Earl of Pomfret on September 8th, 1865, and the builder was J. Wheeler.