Ashburton Town Hall is a municipal building in the North Street,

Ashburton, Devon Ashburton is a town on the south-southeastern edge of Dartmoor in Devon, England, adjacent to the A38. The town is 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Plymouth and 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Exeter. It was formerly important as a stanna ...

, England. The town hall, which is the meeting place of Ashburton Town Council, is a Grade II

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

The first municipal building in the town was a timber-framed market hall which stood at the Bull Ring and was completed in the mid-16th century. By 1848, the old market hall had become very dilapidated and the local

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

Charles Trefusis, 19th Baron Clinton Charles Rudolph Trefusis, 19th Baron Clinton (9 November 1791 – 10 April 1866), styled The Honourable Charles Trefusis between 1794 and 1832, was a British peer and Tory politician. He succeeded to the barony following the death of his elder bro ...

of Heanton Satchville, offered to replace it with a more substantial structure. The new building was designed by Alfred Norman of Devonport in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, built in

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

rubble masonry Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...

and was completed in 1850. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto North Street; the central bay featured a round headed doorway with a keystone and a

wrought-iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" t ...

grill; the outer bays on the ground floor were fenestrated by round headed windows and the first floor was fenestrated by a row of seven round headed windows. Between the two floors, there was a prominent

stringcourse A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the fl ...

containing a carved

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

of the Clinton family in the central bay. There was a three-stage tower surmounted by a prominent bell

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

at the southeast corner of the building and, at roof level, there was a

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

. Internally, the principal room was the main hall on the first floor. A clock mechanism with illuminated faces was manufactured by J. W. Benson of

Ludgate Hill Ludgate Hill is a street and surrounding area, on a small hill in the City of London. The street passes through the former site of Ludgate, a city gate that was demolished – along with a gaol attached to it – in 1760. The area include ...

and installed in the second stage of the tower in 1871.

Charles Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton Charles John Robert Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis, 21st Baron Clinton (18 January 1863 – 5 July 1957) was a British peer. Trefusis was the eldest son of the 20th Baron Clinton and his wife, Harriet. Educated at Oxford he played polo with ...

attempted to sell the town hall as part of an effort to rationalise his estate in 1905, but he withdrew the property from sale after it failed to achieve its reserve price. However, a local solicitor, Henry Mallaby Firth, acquired ownership of the market hall as well as the lordship of Ashburton in 1915 and a licence was granted for silent films to be shown in the main hall in 1919. It was also used as a venue for

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...

hearings and for winter concerts. Following Firth's death in 1926, the building was again put up for sale and was acquired by Ashburton Urban District Council in May 1927. The building became the headquarters of the council and remained the local seat of government until the enlarged

Teignbridge District Council Teignbridge is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council is based in Newton Abbot. Other towns in the district include Ashburton, Buckfastleigh, Dawlish and Teignmouth. It is named for the old Teignbridge hundred. The d ...

was formed at

Newton Abbot Newton Abbot is a market town and civil parish on the River Teign in the Teignbridge District of Devon, England. Its 2011 population of 24,029 was estimated to reach 26,655 in 2019. It grew rapidly in the Victorian era as the home of the Sou ...

in 1974. It subsequently became the meeting place and offices of Ashburton Town Council; it also accommodated the office of the

portreeve A portreeve ( ang, hæfenrēfa, sometimes spelled Port-reeve) or port warden is the title of a historical official in England and Wales possessing authority (political, administrative, or fiscal) over a town. The details of the office have fluctu ...

, whose role was to preside over the local courts, and continued to function as an events venue with the annual Blues Festival being held there. An extensive programme of refurbishment and redecoration works was completed in May 2009.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1850 City and town halls in Devon Ashburton, Devon Grade II listed buildings in Devon