The Borough Hall is a municipal building in Eastgate Street,

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, England. It is located about south of Stoke-on-Trent, north of Wolverhampton, and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 71,673 at the 2021–2022 United Kingd ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

, England. The borough hall, which formed the headquarters of Stafford Borough Council, is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

Until the middle of the 19th century, civic meetings were generally held in the Shire Hall. In 1853 a Guildhall was built on the west side of Market Square which included a council chamber and offices for the borough council as well as a police station. However, by the 1870s the council had outgrown the office space at the guildhall and there was also a need for a large assembly hall. The

local board of health A local board of health (or simply a ''local board'') was a local authority in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulat ...

decided to procure a dedicated borough hall for the

municipal borough A municipal borough was a type of local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of ...

of Stafford: the site they selected had previously been occupied by an 18th century warehouse and associated access known as Mathew's Yard. The building was designed by Henry Ward of Stafford in the

Gothic style Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved from Romanesque ar ...

, built with red brick and stone dressings and was officially opened on 20 June 1877. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Eastgate Street; the central bay, which slightly projected forward, featured an arched doorway on the ground floor, a stone balcony and four-light

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

window on the first floor and a gable containing two

quatrefoil A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...

s and a wheel window. The left and right sections contained pointed arches of differing sizes on the ground floor with a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

of shields above and two-light windows with oculi above on the first floor. At roof level these sections featured 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 (architecture), cornice which helps to support them. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally transl ...

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

, a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

and gables containing wheel windows. Internally, there were council offices and a reading room on the ground floor and a large assembly hall on the first floor. Council meetings continued to be held at the council chamber in the Guildhall, which also retained some of the council's offices. The Guildhall was rebuilt in 1935. In the early 1880s, the reading room on the ground floor of Borough Hall was expanded to incorporate a library and a museum: the latter contained a collection of

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

zoological Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

and

geological Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

exhibits established by the

meteorologist A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists ...

, Clement Lindley Wragge, before he moved to Australia in 1883. The building was extended by three bays to the south east in 1888: the extension featured

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

carvings in the tympanum above each of the windows on the first floor. The library and the museum moved out of the borough hall to a dedicated Carnegie library which was established at The Green in 1913, so freeing up additional space in the borough hall for municipal offices. The borough hall continued to serve as the main offices of the borough council for much of the 20th century and became the main offices of the enlarged Stafford Borough Council when it was formed in 1972, which also used the offices of the former Stafford Rural District council in Newport Road and held its meetings at the Guildhall. Borough Hall ceased to be the local seat of government when the new civic offices were completed on the site of the old Royal Brine Baths in Riverside in 1978. The borough hall was subsequently refurbished and converted for use as an entertainment venue: it was officially re-opened by the

Duke of Gloucester Duke of Gloucester ( ) is a British royal title (after Gloucester), often conferred on one of the sons of the reigning monarch. The first four creations were in the Peerage of England and the last in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; the curre ...

as the Gatehouse Theatre on 27 January 1982.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1877 City and town halls in Staffordshire Buildings and structures in Stafford Grade II listed buildings in Staffordshire 1877 establishments in England

History

See also

References