Ripon Town Hall

The Ripon Town Hall, built in 1799, was designed by James Wyatt. It is a stucco building with a hipped slate roof, standing two storeys high. The building has a continuous plain sill band to the first floor, and a rusticated ground floor. An entablature runs to the eaves, featuring a frieze inscribed "EXCEPT YE LORD KEEP YE CITTIE YE WAKEMAN WAKETH IN VAIN". The facade is five bays wide, with the central three bays projecting slightly and featuring a first-floor order of Ionic half-columns and a pediment. The sashes have glazing bars, round-arched on the ground floor, and moulded architraves to the first floor. Balustrades are present to the first-floor windows: stone with vase-shaped balusters and a moulded handrail to the outer bays, and delicate cast iron to the central bays.

The entrance hall is a corridor, redecorated around 1880 with polychrome tiles to dado height and a mosaic pavement. The landing features two Tuscan columns supporting a partition wall. A contemporary staircase has moulded balusters, a mahogany handrail with a spiral curtail and fluted columnar newels. A marble bust of Mrs Allanson, portrayed as a Roman matron, stands on the semi-landing.

The interior includes various chimneypieces. One in the ground-floor north-west room has fluted pilasters, a regularly fluted frieze, the initials "EA" on a raised central die, and a dentilled cornice. A more elaborate chimneypiece in the Mayor’s parlour features high festoons and a relief panel depicting mythological figures. Two larger ones in the Council Chamber have fluted pilasters, a fluted frieze, badges of Ripon, crossed floral sprays, and a dentilled cornice. An equally large and elaborate chimneypiece, possibly slightly later, is found in a first-floor rear room. The building also contains two ornamental plaster ceilings: one conventionally neo-classical in the Council Chamber, and one more elaborate in a first-floor rear room. The Council Chamber houses two paintings: one depicting Ripon circa 1730, and the other a portrait of Mrs Allanson painted in 1804 by Henry Milbourne, copying an earlier portrait.

The Town Hall was built by Mrs Elizabeth Allanson of Studley Royal (daughter and heir of William Aislabie) for the use of the Corporation. It was presented to the Corporation in 1897 by her eventual heir, the First Marquess of Ripon, to commemorate his mayoralty (1895-6). A marble tablet, placed inside the hall by Mrs Allanson’s sister and heir, Miss Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence, in 1808, records this benefaction.