Alloa Town Hall is a municipal building in Marshill,

Alloa Alloa (Received Pronunciation ; educated Scottish pronunciation /ˈaloʊa/; gd, Alamhagh, possibly meaning "rock plain") is a town in Clackmannanshire in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. It is on the north bank of the Forth at the spot where ...

, Scotland. The structure, which was the meeting place of Alloa Burgh Council, is a Category C

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Until the late 19th century Alloa lacked a public hall capable of accommodating a large number of people, so when a director of John Paton Son and Co., John Thomson Paton, offered to pay for a town hall as a gift to the town, burgh leaders agreed to accept the offer: the site they selected was occupied by some large private houses. The new building was designed by

Alfred Waterhouse Alfred Waterhouse (19 July 1830 – 22 August 1905) was an English architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known f ...

in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

, built by G. & R. Cousin in

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 Vitruv ...

stone at a cost of £18,008 and completed in 1889. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Marshill; the central section of three bays, which projected forward, featured a round headed doorway on the ground floor,

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed windows on the first floor, mullioned windows flanked by

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s on the second floor and mullioned windows on the third floor with a gable above. There was a hall block behind the front block with an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

al chimney at the north end. Internally, the front block contained the council chamber on the first floor and an art school on the upper floors, while the hall block contained an assembly hall which accommodated a public library as well as an organ designed and made by

Forster and Andrews Forster and Andrews was a British organ building company between 1843 and 1924. The company was formed by James Alderson Forster (1818–1886) and Joseph King Andrews (1820–1896), who had been employees of the London organ builder J. C. Bisho ...

. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of Alloa Burgh Council throughout the first half of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the council moved to Greenfield House at Mar Place in 1952. The building continued to be used as an events venue and the

rock band A rock band or pop band is a small musical ensemble that performs rock music, pop music, or a related genre. A four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music. In the early years, the configuration was typically two guita ...

, the '' Silver Beatles'', performed at the town hall during a tour of Scotland as the backing group for the pop singer

Johnny Gentle John Askew (born 8 December 1936), known as Johnny Gentle, is a British pop singer best remembered for having briefly toured Scotland with the Silver Beetles (later known as the Beatles) as his backing group in 1960. Life and career John Ask ...

in May 1960. However, the organ was removed from the building and destroyed in January 1970.

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

met civic officials at the town hall during a visit to the town to re-open the refurbished

Alloa Tower Alloa Tower in Alloa, Clackmannanshire in central Scotland is an early 14th century tower house that served as the medieval residence of the Erskine family, later Earls of Mar. Retaining its original timber roof and battlements, the tower is o ...

in July 1997. A major programme of refurbishment works at the town hall, including redecoration and the upgrading of the heating system, was completed in summer 2011. A plaque to commemorate the visit of the ''Silver Beatles'' was installed on the front of the building and unveiled in March 2022.

References

{{reflist Alfred Waterhouse buildings Government buildings completed in 1889 City chambers and town halls in Scotland Alloa Category C listed buildings in Clackmannanshire

History

See also

References