Town Hall, Upper Cross Street, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 1SZ

Larne Town Hall is an impressive High Victorian Gothic Revival building in the Early French manner, designed in 1868 and opened on 25th August 1870. It was designed by Alexander Tate, a local architect of note, though the design may owe much to his assistant and clerk of works, Samuel P. Close. The contractors were Messrs. Stewart & Co. of Belfast. The building was erected at a cost of between £5,000 and £6,000, funded by the will of Charles McGarel of Magheramourne, and was invested in trustees "for the use of the people for ever."

The building is architecturally significant at a national level as one of very few public buildings in Northern Ireland in secular Gothic style. Its planning is well adapted to its sloping corner site, its details exhibit a mixture of richness and simplicity characteristic of the High Victorian period, and its consistent use of polychrome stonework gives coherence to a composition made up of several distinct elements designed to accommodate a variety of functions. Despite the loss of detail to one large window, the main exterior elevations retain their original appearance, and the principal public spaces of the interior are generally unchanged, retaining an interesting range of features. The building's setting in the older part of the town, surrounded by narrow streets on different levels, reinforces the medieval quality of the chosen style and contributes to its success as a municipal centrepiece in a romantic-revivalist idiom. The building continues to be used in accordance with some of its original functions, which gives it added local interest and social importance.

The building is one and two storeys in height, gabled, with a tall four-storey clock tower, and is built throughout in polychrome stonework. The main entrance faces west, as do two secondary entrances.

WEST ELEVATION

The west elevation consists of a centrally placed four-storey clock tower, with a two-storey block set back to the right, and a tall single-storey hall to the left, built in the same plane as the tower. The hall terminates at its left-hand extremity in a three-storey caretaker's house, which projects forward.

The walls are of rough-faced and snecked buff sandstone with red sandstone string courses. The main entrance is set in the base of the tower and takes the form of a Gothic arch with a projecting drip moulding terminating in floriated label stops, with roll mouldings to the edges of the arches. There is a very badly weathered inscription to the intrados of two arches, and floriated capitals, also much eroded by weather, all in sandstone. Dark grey marble is used for circular colonnettes: the one to the right is complete, but the one to the left is missing a slice of its length. The double doors have decoratively chamfered panels and chamfered glazed panes of wired translucent glass, mounted with four large original wrought iron hinges treated ornamentally with typical High Victorian stiff-leaf designs. The doors are set in an arched wooden frame with a plain glazed Gothic arched fanlight over, all woodwork painted maroon and ironwork painted black. There is a granite front step and doorstep. At the right-hand extremity of the ground storey of the tower, the wall extends to form a two-stage buttress.

The first floor of the tower has a single narrow Gothic lancet containing a timber fixed light divided by four horizontal glazing bars. Above that is a small circular cusped opening, unglazed, which appears to contain wooden louvres. The top stage of the tower has a tall Gothic arched recess containing a pair of cusped Gothic openings around a central grey colonnette with a floriated capital, the openings filled with wooden louvres, and surmounted by a circular moulded and cusped opening containing a clock face filled with white glass with Roman numerals in ironwork. The corners of the belfry stage have tall recessed colonnettes with moulded bases and floriated capitals, all in sandstone. The top of the belfry stage has a Gothic arched corbel course with an ornamental cornice decorated with nail-head mouldings above. A cast iron gutter runs at this level. The tall pyramidal roof is of Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses alternating with fish-scale courses; the apex is surmounted by a foliated wrought iron finial and ridge cresting. The tower roof originally had gabled lucarnes, but these have been removed. The north and south faces of the belfry stage are treated identically to the west face. The second floor of the tower has a small circular opening on the south side similar to that on the west, while the north side is blank.

Flush with the front wall of the tower, the tall single-storey hall extends to the left. Its roof is banded as the tower roof, though the regular courses are later replacements, differing in colour and texture from the fish-scale courses. It has ornamental ridge tiles and six cusped gabled lucarnes in maroon-painted timber with lead coverings, spaced regularly across the roof at mid-slope. A moulded cast iron gutter runs along the eaves, with a circular-section cast iron downpipe at the centre, on a moulded red sandstone eaves course. Six tall Gothic arched traceried windows are regularly spaced along the wall. Each window comprises a pair of cusped lancets with a central grey marble colonnette and sandstone plate tracery above, consisting of a cusped circular tracery light with an iron hoop glazing bar and small circular piercings to the spandrels in typical High Victorian manner. The carved foliated capitals to the colonnettes are some badly eroded. The central colonnettes stand proud of the coupled lancets. The windows are timber fixed lights glazed with translucent glass, with bottom-hung and horizontally pivoted transom lights; the fixed top lights contain clear glass directly glazed to the cusped heads. The wooden frames of the lancets appear to be later replacements and do not follow the original pattern. A red sandstone relieving arch sits over each of the six large windows, with two bands of red sandstone string courses running between windows at intermediate levels and a further string course running below the level of the splayed cills. The lower string course is punctuated by cusped circular ventilation holes level with the mid-point of each window, with the string course angled at each vent hole and returning back into a recess. The plinth along the base of the hall steps up to the left as the pavement rises.

The caretaker's house to the left of the hall has a gabled front. At ground floor there is a round-arched window to the left and a Gothic arched doorway to the right. The wall at the right-hand extremity extends as a single-stage buttress rising to mid-storey height. The window is a timber sliding sash, vertically hung, two over two, with horns, with a splayed sandstone cill. The door is a rectangular ledged timber door in a herringbone pattern, painted maroon, with two large ornamented original wrought iron hinges of similar High Victorian styling but different in shape from those to the main entrance, and an original wrought iron handle in a quatrefoil mount, with a rectangular brass letterbox. The door is hung in a timber frame with a shouldered head and a glazed sandstone tympanum over, containing a cinquefoil fanlight in clear glass, with a red sandstone Gothic arch over the tympanum and a concrete doorstep. The first floor contains two Gothic lancets with timber sashes as described above but with pointed rather than semi-circular arches to the top. The cills are continuous with a projecting moulded string course in buff sandstone. The second floor has a single Gothic lancet, centrally placed and rising into the gable, with the same sash pattern but a splayed sandstone cill. Above the lancet is a circular recessed vent. The gable has a broad sandstone coping with a shaped kneeler to the right-hand slope, gablet mouldings to the apex, and a rectangular-section chimney to the left-hand extremity of the gable with a battered cap surmounted by three original terracotta chimney pots running to the rear.

The two-storey block to the right of the clock tower consists of two separately roofed elements. The two bays to the right have a higher eaves line and higher ridge line, though string courses are continuous. The roofs are slated as described for the large hall. The portion next to the tower has, at ground-floor level, a pair of coupled Gothic lancets with timber sashes and splayed cills as those to the second floor of the caretaker's house, except that the lower sashes are covered with hardboard. To the right of these is a Gothic arched doorway of similar style to the main entrance but simplified: without the inner order of arch, without inscriptions, without a projecting drip moulding and label stops, and with a single door only. To each side at the base is a Gothic arched recess that originally contained bootscrapers but is now empty. There are three granite steps. Above the apex of the relieving arch is a moulded circular surround to a hexafoil opening, now blocked with a sheet of board. Above, at first-floor level, is a pair of coupled lancets as described, except that the cills are formed by the projecting moulded string course running across the whole two-storey block. Above these lancets, in a stone gablet rising above the eaves line, is a cusped circular opening with moulded edges, filled with vertical tongued and grooved boarding. The gablet has sandstone coping with shoulders at different levels. Moulded cast iron guttering runs to each side of the gablet on a moulded eaves course, and a circular-section cast iron downpipe breaks through the projecting string course. To the left of the downpipe at first-floor level is a narrow rectangular opening filled with what appears to be a sheet metal perforated grille.

The two bays at the right-hand end of the two-storey block have two pairs of coupled Gothic lancets at ground floor. Each lancet is a timber sliding sash, vertically hung, one over one, with horns and a cusped head to the upper sash. A projecting drip moulding is continuous over each lancet but is badly weathered with parts missing; cills are splayed sandstone in two stages. At first floor are two tall Gothic arched recessed window panels in line with the ground-floor windows, detailed as those to the large hall to the left of the tower, except that they have projecting drip mouldings in place of red sandstone relieving arches, cills formed by the projecting moulded string course, and rectangular timber frames with three panes to each lancet and cusped top lights directly glazed to the stonework. The first-floor window arches rise into paired stone gables, each containing a cusped circular vent opening with sandstone gable copings, shaped kneelers, and a stone block finial to the apex of each gable. Short moulded cast iron gutters and circular cast iron downpipes are positioned to each side and in the centre between the gables. The main roof over this two-bay portion runs between projecting end gables with cusped gablet mouldings to the base at each side. At the right-hand extremity of the ground floor, the corner is angled and flanked by recessed grey marble colonnettes, above which stone corbels carry the corner of the upper section of wall.

NORTH ELEVATION

The end wall of the caretaker's house is plain buff sandstone with one full-width red sandstone string course and the returned ends of the other string courses. The roof is slated in bands as previously described, but all in original Bangor blue slates. A moulded cast iron gutter sits on a chamfer-edged red sandstone eaves course, with a circular cast iron downpipe to the left-hand side. There is a chimney at each extremity: one to the right has a short weathered buttress rising from eaves level, a sandstone string course, and miniature gablets to a battered cap; one to the left has a projecting string course, a plain battered cap, and three original chimney pots as described elsewhere. At ground floor there are two windows set behind a line of timber screen which closes the side entry from the street: one large rectangular timber sliding sash, two over two, and one small narrow rectangular timber window partly covered by a later corrugated iron shelter in the entry, both with a segmental-profiled relieving arch above. Extending to the left at ground level and set back slightly is a red brick wall of a projecting rear block of the caretaker's house, with a lean-to roof of what appears to be asbestos slates and a rectangular doorway in the wall.

EAST ELEVATION

The east elevation runs from right to left as follows. The three-storey gabled rear wall of the caretaker's house is in basalt rubble with red brick to the centre marking the position of the gable chimney, red brick dressings to three windows, and buff sandstone to the extreme right-hand edge where the sandstone facing of the north elevation terminates. There is one large window to each floor, each a rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, two over two, with horns and projecting stone cills. A smaller rectangular window at an intermediate level, probably at a half-landing of a stairway, contains a timber bottom-hung three-pane window.

Projecting forward from the gable and extending across part of the hall block to the left is a lean-to two-storey red brick block, five windows wide at first floor and four windows wide at ground floor. The windows are rectangular timber sliding sashes, vertically hung, two over two, with horns and projecting sandstone cills. The shallow-pitched roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses, with one modern rooflight inserted.

To the left of the red brick projecting block is the rear wall of the main hall in basalt rubble with a red brick eaves course, red brick courses near the base, and a red brick section raking up to a prominent red brick chimney. The roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with decorative ridge tiles.

To the left of the main hall block is a small area of basalt walling of single-storey height to a lean-to profile, containing a later rectangular timber fixed light with a top-hung vent. The wall continues above the raking line with later blank brickwork to second-floor height, then returns to lean-to profile again. Behind this brick extension, the east face of the clock tower belfry storey is identical in treatment to the other faces, except for a cast iron circular gutter to the right-hand side.

To the left of the brick extension is the original red brickwork of the rear wall of the first-floor corridor and the side and rear of the stairwell, with round-headed timber sliding sash windows, vertically hung, two over two, with horns. To the left of the stairwell is the sandstone north gable of the two-storey block at the south end of the building, containing a Gothic arched plate-traceried ventilation opening for the roof space, designed in typical High Victorian style with circular, trefoil, and quatrefoil perforations. At the extreme left, adjoining two- and three-storey buildings of No. 2 Main Street abut the town hall; these have white limestone rubble walls with red brick dressings and slated roofs.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation is gabled, two storeys, one bay, with walling as to the entrance front. At ground floor is a pair of coupled Gothic lancets as described for the extreme right-hand bays of the entrance front, except for a central marble colonnette and a projecting common cill. To the left of this window is a polished black marble plaque inscribed "Erected in memory of H.T. Browne 1887–1973, poet, playwright, author, by Larne & District Folklore Society, 1981." At the left-hand extremity the wall is angled off at a corner flanked by recessed marble colonnettes, with corbels above carrying the oversailing corner of the wall at the higher level, which itself has a recessed corner colonnette. At the right-hand extremity, steel covering to electrical cables extends up to the projecting string course and then across the south wall, returning at the left-hand corner to continue along the length of the entrance elevation.

At first floor is a centrally placed Gothic arched window of the same size as those to the first floor of the extreme right-hand bays of the entrance elevation, but with the stone tracery removed and replaced by a later smooth cement-rendered panel containing a plain glazed oculus above a rectangular timber fixed light divided into four panes. Above, high in the gable, is a quatrefoil opening in a circular surround with a red sandstone string course to each side. The apex of the sandstone gable coping has a stone block finial.

SETTING

The building stands on a corner site in the centre of the town, immediately overlooking the street on two sides. It is abutted to the south-east by an adjoining three-storey shop with later smooth cement-rendered upper storeys. To the north it is separated by an entry from the basalt rubble retaining wall of a car park. At the entrance to the entry stands a tall corner pier in sandstone similar to that of the town hall, with a battered cap, which is clearly an integral part of the original design. The entry is partly closed off by modern wooden boarding and partly paved in concrete. The eastern boundary is formed by the basalt rubble retaining wall of adjacent properties.

HISTORY

The building was designed in 1868 following an invitation for tenders published in the Belfast News-Letter of 10 December 1868, and was opened on 25th August 1870, as reported in the Larne Reporter and Belfast News-Letter of 27 August 1870 and in the Irish Builder of 15 September 1870. As well as the large hall used for entertainments and rooms for the Town Commissioners, it originally also contained a reading room and library. By the 1880s a large room on the second floor contained "the nucleus of a museum." The building is illustrated in its original state, with lucarnes to the tower roof, in D. Corcoran's A Tour of East Antrim (Friar's Bush Press, Belfast, 1990).