The Bradford Town Hall is located on West Main Street in
Bradford, New Hampshire
Bradford is a town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 1,662 at the 2020 census. The main village of the town, where 372 people resided at the 2020 census, is defined as the Bradford census-designated place (CDP) ...
. Built in the 1860s with timbers from an earlier meeting house, it has been the town's center of civic affairs since then. It was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in 1980.
Description and history
Bradford Town Hall is located in the town's village center, on the south side of West Main Street, just west of its junction with Church Street. It is a 2-1/2 story timber frame structure, with a cross-gable roof configuration and a clapboarded exterior. The front facade is three bays wide, with a center entrance sheltered by a gabled hood, and an oculus window in the gable above. The building corners have simple Doric pilasters, which rise to a partial entablature.
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The building has an unusual history. The town built a meetinghouse in 1797 at a different location (near the site of the Bradford Center Meetinghouse), which was used for both civic and religious functions. In the 1860s, when the state mandated the ]separation of church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the state. Conceptually, the term refers to the creation of a secular sta ...
, the new meetinghouse was built for religious use, and the old one was disassembled and its parts used to build a new town hall. The framing of the building thus has Federal style elements, while the exterior was given a Greek Revival styling popular at that time of this building's construction. An early 20th century addition added Colonial Revival details that were sympathetic to the earlier styling. Alterations in that time included the addition of a stage to the auditorium, and the addition of fire escapes.
See also
*
* New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 108: Bradford Center
References
{{NRHP in Merrimack County, New Hampshire
City and town halls on the National Register of Historic Places in New Hampshire
Greek Revival architecture in New Hampshire
Colonial Revival architecture in New Hampshire
Government buildings completed in 1863
Buildings and structures in Merrimack County, New Hampshire
National Register of Historic Places in Merrimack County, New Hampshire
Bradford, New Hampshire