Municipal building in London, England
St George's Town Hall, formerly known as Stepney Town Hall, and, before that, St George's Vestry Hall, is a municipal building on Cable Street, Stepney, London. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
In the mid-19th century the local vestry board met in a room on the south-west corner of the Church of St George in the East.[2] Board members decided this arrangement was inadequate for their needs and that they would procure a purpose-built vestry hall for the Parish of St George: the site chosen was to the north-east of the church and already formed part of the church grounds.[3]
The vestry hall, the western section of the current complex, was designed by Andrew Wilson in the Classical style and was completed in 1860.[4] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Cable Street; there was a porch with Doric order columns and pilasters and a triglyphed frieze projecting from the central section and a row of windows interspersed with Ionic order columns on the first floor.[1] A cornice bearing the words "Erected AD 1860" was added at roof level.[1] The principal room was the board room (subsequently termed the council chamber) located on the first floor at the front of the building.[4]
On 1 October 1888 the inquest into the death of Elizabeth Stride, the third victim of the Whitechapel murders, was held in the building.[5][6]
The building was extended eastwards by adding an extra three bays to the five bays that already existed in a similar style in 1899; it went on to become the headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney as "Stepney Town Hall" in 1900.[7] The area in front of the town hall was the scene of the Battle of Cable Street on Sunday 4 October 1936 when a clash took place between the Metropolitan Police, sent to protect a march by members of the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, and various anti-fascist demonstrators.[8] A mural, which was painted on the side of the building, in the early 1980s, to depict these events, was restored in the early 21st century.[8][9][10]
The building ceased to function as the local seat of government when the enlarged London Borough of Tower Hamlets was formed in 1965.[11] It subsequently became the home of various community organisations including St George's Boxing Club.[12] After the building was converted for commercial use in the 1990s,[4] a community centre, managed by Unite the Union, was established in the basement in 2013.[13]
References
