The first town hall in Stoke-upon-Trent was erected in the Market Place between Market Street (now known as Hill Street) and Hide Street in 1794: it had arcading on the ground floor to allow markets to be held and an assembly room was established on the first floor.[2][3] After significant industrial growth in the early 19th century, particularly associated with the potteries industry, civic leaders decided to procure a larger structure: the site selected was north east of the original structure in the heart of the potteries manufacturing area.[4][a]
The new building was designed by Henry Ward in the neoclassical style, built in rusticated stone on the ground floor and ashlar stone above and was completed in 1834.[1] The design originally involved a symmetrical main frontage with just three bays facing onto the Glebe Street; it featured a large portico with three archways on the ground floor beneath four Ionic order columns supporting an entablature and a pediment.[1] It was extended with a north wing for use by the police in 1842 and a south wing for use by the courts in around 1850.[1] The outer bays in each of the two wings were slightly projected forward, enhanced with Ionic order pilasters on the first floor and pedimented as pavilions.[1] Internally, the principal room was a market hall in the centre of the building,[7] but the ground floor was remodelled in 1888 to convert the market hall into a public hall and to create a council chamber, a mayor's parlour and some municipal offices.[8]
Assembly rooms known as the King's Hall and the Jubilee Hall were constructed to a design by Thomas Wallis and James Albert Bowden behind the main structure in 1911.[1][9] The town hall became the headquarters of the new county borough of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910 and King George V and Queen Mary visited the town hall and announced the town's advancement to city status on 5 June 1925.[10] The rock band, the Beatles, performed at a concert in the King's Hall on 26 January 1963.[11] The building remained the local seat of government after the formation of the enlarged Stoke-on-Trent City Council in 1974.[12]
The new city council inherited additional facilities at Unity House in Hanley which had been completed in 1973, but as part of an initiative to co-locate its staff, the city council vacated Unity House and constructed a civic centre to the immediate north of the town hall in 1992.[13] In 2012 the city council announced its intention to relocate some of its staff back to Hanley but into a newly built facility there.[14][15] After a programme of refurbishment works costing £1.5 million was completed in 2018, the register office moved from Hanley Town Hall into the newly-refurbished building in October 2020.[16]
Notes
^The first town hall was subsequently used as a fire station and then as a drill hall before being demolished just before the Second World War; the site is now occupied by a car park.[5][6]
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