Town Hall & Market Hall

Town Hall and Market Hall

This is a High Victorian Gothic building complex comprising a Town Hall, Market Hall, and former Fire Station, all constructed of coursed rock-faced stone with limestone and sandstone ashlar detailing.

The Town Hall fronts Market Street with a tall two-storey, three-window block and is dominated by a three-stage tower to the right. A one-window return faces Wynnstay Road, to the left of which stands a plainer two-storey block with basement. All parts are roofed with hipped slate and feature richly embellished eaves corbelling.

The principal architectural detail is concentrated in the ground floor arcade, which has four bays to Market Street and one bay to Wynnstay Road. The pointed arches are constructed of light and dark grey stone springing from ornate foliate capitals, with sandstone ashlar inside the arches including carved tympana by Edward Griffith. The entrance to the Town Hall occupies the right side, leading into the ground floor of the tower through attached shafts bearing foliate capitals. The doors are double-panelled under a shallow segmental head with a dog-tooth frieze, and the tympanum bears a roundel with a castle in relief. Access is by four stone steps.

The arcade continues to the left with two-light windows, each light having a battered sill and shallow segmental head with horizontal glazing bars. The central tympanum bears a roundel depicting a harvesting scene, while the flanking tympana contain recessed roundels with pierced decoration. The upper storey of the Town Hall features windows with a moulded sill band, with tall lights under pointed arches and continuous impost bands; the limestone tympana are decorated with roundels and rosettes. Paired lights to the centre of the Market Street elevation are divided by a colonette with a foliate capital, each light having a trefoiled head, all under a higher arch with a rosette. A similar single light appears on the first floor of the tower, in front of which is a small sandstone balcony on decorative brackets with iron railings displaying scrollwork.

The top stage of the tower has two-light pointed-arched louvres to the north and west sides, with lights divided by a central colonette bearing a foliate capital; triangular heads over the louvres each contain a recessed roundel, probably for a clock. The south side has a plain roundel. The tower is topped by a steep Mansard roof with lucarnes to each side under half-hipped gablets, and two decorative iron finials mark the apex.

The Market Hall is a single-storey structure of coursed rock-faced stone under a slate roof with a raised ridge ventilator and bracketed eaves; limestone banding and dressings accent the openings. To the far left is a small doorway to an office with a half-glazed panelled door under a chamfered red sandstone lintel, accessed by a late 20th-century ramp of snecked red sandstone. At each end of the Market Hall, beneath pronounced crow-stepped gables, are very tall doorways with canted heads containing double panelled doors infilled with boarding and decorative ironwork. Two windows between these doorways are both two-light with shouldered heads under a trefoiled ashlar panel with a roundel beneath the apex.

The former Fire Station at the right end of the Market Hall is continuous with it but has slightly lower eaves. It features a pair of large segmental-arched openings of red sandstone, originally for vehicles, now infilled with glazing.

To the left of the Town Hall and fronting Wynnstay Road is an adjoining block of two storeys with a basement. The front is of rock-faced limestone under a hipped slate roof; the south end and rear are of brick. The front elevation has narrow rectangular two-over-four-pane sashes, eight windows to the ground floor and four to the first floor. The basement contains a central boarded door with overlight, a shallow segmental-arched sash to the left, and a window and small door to the right. The south end has a truncated brick stack and narrow infilled windows flanking a tall block of circa 2000. The rear adjoins a two-storey wing at right angles, of brick under a hipped slate roof, with small-pane wooden casements or four-pane sashes. The rear of the Market Hall is of brick with a line of four port-hole windows and a plain wooden door to the right.

Internally, the Market Hall has a six-bay open roof with jointed arched-brace trusses, iron tie-beams, and a flagstone floor; brick end walls include a blocked opening to the west end. The interior of the Town Hall was not examined.