The Old Town Hall is a municipal building in The Shambles, Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Stroud Urban District Council, is a Grade II* listed building.[1]
History
The doorway to the offices
Following the granting of a charter to hold markets in 1594, the lord of the manor at Over Lypiatt, John Throckmorton, decided to commission a market hall; the new building was designed in the neoclassical style and completed in 1596.[1] The original design involved a symmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto the Market Place; it was arcaded on the ground floor to allow markets to be held; an assembly room with a large oriel window was established on the first floor.[2][3]
A village lock-up was created in the basement of the building in the 17th century[4] and a school was established on the first floor of the building in the early 18th century:[5] the physicist, John Canton, attended the school at that time.[6] Part of the building was converted into a tailor's spinning house in the late 18th century.[2]
The building was first used for municipal purposes as a meeting place for the local vestry in the early 19th century.[2] It was extended to a design by Francis Niblett to accommodate the county court in 1851[7] and, after becoming the offices of the local board of health, it was remodelled in the gothic style with a large gable containing mullion windows erected above the two central bays in 1856.[2] In order to improve the stability of the building, large buttresses, flanking the two central bays, were installed on the front of the building in 1890.[2] After significant population growth, partly associated with the number of dye works in the town, the area became an urban district with the town hall as its headquarters in 1894.[8]
Following an increase in the responsibilities of the council, civic leaders acquired the former offices of the Gloucester Banking Company in the High Street in 1930; the High Street building was converted for municipal use and was subsequently referred to as the "Council Chambers".[2] Although most council officers and their departments moved to the new Council Chambers in the High Street, some departments, including the technical services department, remained in the old building.[9] The old town hall remained in municipal use even after the enlarged Stroud District Council was formed in 1974.[10][11] However, in 1986, the council acquired Ebley Mill, once the largest mills of its type in the south west of England, with a view to converting it for office use for council officers and their departments.[12] Following the preparation of a feasibility study, a programme of improvement works was implemented at the town hall after the council moved out in 1988.[13][14]
Wall hangings created to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the granting of a charter to the town were completed in 1994 and subsequently hung in the building.[15]
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