Banbury Town Hall is a municipal facility in the High Street in

Banbury Banbury is a historic market town on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, South East England. It had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census. Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshir ...

, Oxfordshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Banbury Borough Council from its completion in 1854 until 1930, 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

Converted warehouse on Lower Cherwell Street - geograph

The first town hall in the town was built in Cornhill in around 1590. It was replaced by a second town hall, constructed in timber, in the Market Place in around 1633 and followed by a third, more substantial structure, on the same site as the second building, in around 1790. The building was designed with arcading on the ground floor to allow markets to be held; an assembly room was established on the first floor. After the anti-reformist, Heneage Legge was elected

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

for

in November 1819 by the members of Banbury Corporation, who were the only people allowed to vote, there was rioting in the town centre: the windows in the town hall were broken and attempts were made to tear down the pillars supporting the first floor of the building. Following the passing of the

Reform Act In the United Kingdom, Reform Act is most commonly used for legislation passed in the 19th century and early 20th century to enfranchise new groups of voters and to redistribute seats in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ...

in 1832, a public procession and a fête were held on the town. After deciding, in the mid-19th century, that the Bridge Street area was in need of regeneration, civic leaders decided to procure a new town hall at the east end of the High Street. The new building, which was designed by

Edward George Bruton Edward George Bruton (17 February 1826 – 3 August 1899) was a British Gothic Revival architect who practised in Oxford. He was made an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in 1855 and a Fellow of the RIBA in 1861. Bo ...

in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and built by Chesterman Brothers of Abingdon, was completed in October 1854. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing the junction of the High Street and Market Place; the central section, which projected forward, featured an arched doorway on the ground floor and a balcony with an

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinat ...

headed window on the first floor. A clock tower and

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

were added in 1860. The principal room was an assembly hall on the first floor. The building was extended to the south west to create a council chamber in 1891. The town hall was the headquarters of Banbury Borough Council until the council moved its administration to the mechanics' institute in Marlborough Road in 1930. On 27 November 2008, Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the town hall and unveiled a plaque commemorating the 400th anniversary of the granting of the town's charter. Works of art in the town hall include a painting depicting

Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

Giovanni Paolo Panini Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini (17 June 1691 – 21 October 1765) was an Italian painter and architect who worked in Rome and is primarily known as one of the ''vedutisti'' ("view painters"). As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of ...

, a painting depicting columns in an Italianate landscape by Claude Lorrain and a painting depicting the judgement of

Midas Midas (; grc-gre, Μίδας) was the name of a king in Phrygia with whom several myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house. The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ...

Luca Giordano Luca Giordano (18 October 1634 – 3 January 1705) was an Italian late-Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples and Rome, Florence, and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain. Earl ...

. There are also portraits of Prince Rupert of the Rhine by

Johannes Mytens Johannes Mytens or Jan Mijtens, or "Mytens" to the English (c.1614 – 24 December 1670) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, almost entirely as a portraitist. Mytens was born in The Hague. According to Houbraken, Johannes (Jan) Mijtens was trained ...

and of the parliamentarian,

John Hampden John Hampden (24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of t ...

, by Godfrey Kneller.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1854 City and town halls in Oxfordshire Grade II listed buildings in Oxfordshire Banbury