Witney Town Hall
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Witney Town Hall
Witney Town Hall is a municipal structure in Spring Lane in Market Square, Witney, Oxfordshire, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Witney Town Council, is a Grade II* listed building. History The first town hall in Witney was built in the Market Square in 1514. The borough courts held hearings in the building from the mid-16th century and it was used for social events by the 17th century. It was arcaded on the ground floor to allow markets to be held and an assembly room with was established on the first floor. A village lock-up for holding petty criminals was installed in the arcaded area in the early 18th century and a horse-drawn fire engine was installed in the same area in the mid-18th century. Civic leaders decided to replace the town hall in the early 1780s. The new building was designed in the neoclassical style, probably by Sir William Chambers, built in ashlar stone extracted from a quarry at Black Bourton by masons, James Gulliver and William Harris ...
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Witney
Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ''Wyttannige'' in a Saxon charter of 969. The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as ''Witenie''. Notable buildings The Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin was originally Norman. The north porch and north aisle were added in this style late in the 12th century, and survived a major rebuilding in about 1243. In this rebuilding the present chancel, transepts, tower and spire were added and the nave was remodelled, all in the Early English style. In the 14th century a number of side chapels and some of the present windows were added in the Decorated style. In the 15th century the south transept was extended and the present west window of the nave were added in the Perpendicular style. The tower has a peal of eight bel ...
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Vestry
A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquially as the "vestry". Overview For many centuries, in the absence of any other authority (which there would be in an incorporated city or town), the vestries were the sole ''de facto'' local government in most of the country, and presided over local, communal fundraising and expenditure until the mid or late 19th century using local established Church chairmanship. They were concerned for the spiritual but also the temporal as well as physical welfare of parishioners and its parish amenities, collecting local rates or taxes and taking responsibility for numerous functions such as the care of the poor, the maintaining of roads, and law enforcement, etc. More punitive matters were dealt with by the manorial court and hundred court, and latter ...
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Government Buildings Completed In 1780
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, Executive (government), executive, and judiciary. Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced, as well as a mechanism for determining policy. In many countries, the government has a kind of constitution, a statement of its governing principles and philosophy. While all types of organizations have governance, the term ''government'' is often used more specifically to refer to the approximately 200 List of sovereign states, independent national governments and Governmental organization, subsidiary organizations. The major types of political systems in the modern era are democracies, monarchies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. Historically prevalent forms of government include monarchy, aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy ...
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Grade II* Listed Buildings In West Oxfordshire
There are over 20,000 Grade II* listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the district of West Oxfordshire in Oxfordshire. List of buildings See also * Grade I listed buildings in West Oxfordshire * Grade II* listed buildings in Cherwell (district) * Grade II* listed buildings in Oxford * Grade II* listed buildings in South Oxfordshire * Grade II* listed buildings in Vale of White Horse There are over 20,000 Grade II* listed buildings in England. This page is a list of these buildings in the district of Vale of White Horse in Oxfordshire. List of buildings ... Notes External links {{DEFAULTSORT:West Oxfordshire Lists of listed buildings in Oxfordshire ...
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Public Toilet
A public toilet, restroom, public bathroom or washroom is a room or small building with toilets (or urinals) and sinks for use by the general public. The facilities are available to customers, travelers, employees of a business, school pupils and prisoners and are commonly sex segregation, separated into male and female toilets, although unisex toilet, some are unisex, especially for small or single-occupancy public toilets. Increasingly, accessible toilet, public toilets are accessible to people with disabilities. Depending on the culture, there may be varying degrees of separation between males and females and different levels of privacy. Typically, the entire room, or a stall or cubicle containing a toilet, is lockable. Urinals, if present in a male toilet, are typically mounted on a wall with or without a divider between them. local authority, Local authorities or commercial businesses may provide public toilet facilities. Some are unattended while others are staffed by an ...
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Victorian Era
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian period, and its later half overlaps with the first part of the '' Belle Époque'' era of Continental Europe. There was a strong religious drive for higher moral standards led by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists and the evangelical wing of the established Church of England. Ideologically, the Victorian era witnessed resistance to the rationalism that defined the Georgian period, and an increasing turn towards romanticism and even mysticism in religion, social values, and arts. This era saw a staggering amount of technological innovations that proved key to Britain's power and prosperity. Doctors started moving away from tradition and mysticism towards a science-based approach; medicine advanced thanks to the adoption ...
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Corn Exchange, Witney
The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in Market Street, Witney, Oxfordshire, England. The structure, which is used as a public events venue, is a Grade II listed building. History Until the mid-19th century, corn merchants traded from the ground floor of Witney Town Hall. In the early 1860s, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company, to be known as the "Witney Corn Exchange and Public Rooms Company", to finance and commission a purpose-built corn exchange for the town. The site they chose in Market Street had accommodated the "Corn Returns Office", a structure, which was designed in the Tudor style using timber-frame construction, and which dated from 1593. The new building was designed by John Collier of Putney in the neoclassical style, built by a local builder, Malachi Bartlett, in ashlar stone at a cost of £2,500 and was officially opened on 17 September 1863. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of three bays facing onto Market Street. The cent ...
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Urban District (Great Britain And Ireland)
In England and Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. England and Wales In England and Wales, urban districts and rural districts were created in 1894 (by the Local Government Act 1894) as subdivisions of administrative counties. They replaced the earlier system of urban and rural sanitary districts (based on poor law unions) the functions of which were taken over by the district councils. The district councils also had wider powers over local matters such as parks, cemeteries and local planning. An urban district usually contained a single parish, while a rural district might contain many. Urban districts were considered to have more problems with public health than rural areas, and so urban district councils had more funding and greater power ...
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Tuscan Order
The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but with un-fluted columns and a simpler entablature with no triglyphs or guttae. While relatively simple columns with round capitals had been part of the vernacular architecture of Italy and much of Europe since at least Etruscan architecture, the Romans did not consider this style to be a distinct architectural order (for example, the Roman architect Vitruvius did not include it alongside his descriptions of the Greek Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders). Its classification as a separate formal order is first mentioned in Isidore of Seville's ''Etymologies'' and refined during the Italian Renaissance. Sebastiano Serlio described five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth book of ''Regole generali di ...
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William Chambers (architect)
__NOTOC__ Sir William Chambers (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-Scottish architect, based in London. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy. Biography William Chambers was born on 23 February 1723 in Gothenburg, Sweden, to a Scottish merchant father. Between 1740 and 1749 he was employed by the Swedish East India Company making three voyages to China where he studied Chinese architecture and decoration. Returning to Europe, he studied architecture in Paris (with J. F. Blondel) and spent five years in Italy. Then, in 1755, he moved to London, where he established an architectural practice. In 1757, through a recommendation of Lord Bute, he was appointed architectural tutor to the Prince of Wales, later George III, and in 1766 also, along with Robert Adam, Architect to the King, (this being an unofficial title, rather than an actual salaried post with the Office of Works). He wo ...
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Black Bourton
Black Bourton is a village and civil parish about south of Carterton, Oxfordshire. The village is on Black Bourton Brook, a tributary of the River Thames. The 2011 Census recorded the parish population as 266. RAF Brize Norton adjoins the parish. The northern boundary of the parish is along the middle of the main runway of the airfield. Church and chapel Church of England The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin was originally built about 1190. The five- bay arcade between the nave and north aisle survives from this time. In the 13th century the chancel, nave and north aisle were remodelled, and the easternmost bay of the aisle was projected northward to form a north transept. Early English Gothic lancet windows in chancel, nave and north chapel date from this time. The north doorway of the north aisle dates from the 14th century. In the 15th century the bell tower was built into the nave and the stone pulpit was built. By the end of the 16th century the no ...
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Ashlar
Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruvius as opus isodomum, or less frequently trapezoidal. Precisely cut "on all faces adjacent to those of other stones", ashlar is capable of very thin joints between blocks, and the visible face of the stone may be quarry-faced or feature a variety of treatments: tooled, smoothly polished or rendered with another material for decorative effect. One such decorative treatment consists of small grooves achieved by the application of a metal comb. Generally used only on softer stone ashlar, this decoration is known as "mason's drag". Ashlar is in contrast to rubble masonry, which employs irregularly shaped stones, sometimes minimally worked or selected for similar size, or both. Ashlar is related but distinct from other stone masonry that is ...
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