Cambridge Guildhall is a civic building in the centre of the historic city of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It includes two halls, ''The Large Hall'' and ''The Small Hall'', and is used for many disparate events such as comedy acts, conferences, craft fairs, live music, talks, and weddings. It is also used by the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

for certain examinations. It is owned and managed by the

Cambridge City Council Cambridge City Council is a district council in the county of Cambridgeshire, which governs the City of Cambridge. History Cambridge was granted a Royal Charter by King John in 1207, which permitted the appointment of a mayor. The first recorde ...

, and it is their seat of government. The Guildhall is located on the south side of Market Hill, the

market square The market square (or sometimes, the market place) is a Town square, square meant for trading, in which a market is held. It is an important feature of many towns and cities around the world.Peas Hill Peas Hill is a street in central Cambridge, England.Peas Hill
, Cambridge City Council. I ...

to the west and Guildhall Street to the east. It 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 earliest known property on the site was a house, previously owned by a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

known as Benjamin, which King Henry III granted to the town for use as a prison in 1224. An adjoining

synagogue A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...

was leased to the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

s who later moved to a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

on a site where

Sidney Sussex College Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...

now stands. In 1270 the premises became the "tolbooth" as it was known then since its main function concerned tolls for entry to the town and trading at the market. The tollbooth was also used for plays and the troupe of actors, ''

Queen Elizabeth's Men Queen Elizabeth's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in English Renaissance theatre. Formed in 1583 at the express command of Queen Elizabeth, it was the dominant acting company for the rest of the 1580s, as the Admiral's Men and the ...

,'' performed regularly between 1561 and 1562 and again between 1596 and 1597. In 1747, a shire house, designed by Sharman and Barratt in the

Classical style 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 works of the Roman architect V ...

, was built, on arches with stalls beneath, on the open area at the front of the

Market Square The market square (or sometimes, the market place) is a Town square, square meant for trading, in which a market is held. It is an important feature of many towns and cities around the world.James Essex James Essex (1722–1784) was an English builder and architect who mostly worked in Cambridge, where he was born. He designed portions of many colleges of the University of Cambridge, and carried out major restorations of the cathedrals at Ely and ...

at a cost of £2,500 in 1782. The shire house and the tollbooth were connected by a wooden bridge over Butter Row, a narrow market street with stalls selling

dairy product Dairy products or milk products, also known as lacticinia, are food products made from (or containing) milk. The most common dairy animals are cow, water buffalo, nanny goat, and ewe. Dairy products include common grocery store food items in th ...

s. The two buildings operated collectively as "the guildhall" from the late 1840s. After the old guildhall became inadequate for the council's needs, the current guildhall, which was designed by

Charles Cowles-Voysey Charles Cowles-Voysey (24 June 1889 – 10 April 1981) was an English architect. Career Charles Voysey studied at the Architectural Association School and the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture. Between 1909 and 1912 he was articled to Horace ...

in the Neo-Georgian style, was built on the site of the two original buildings at a cost of £150,000 and completed in 1939. A sculpture created by

Michael Ayrton Michael Ayrton (20 February 1921 – 16 November 1975)T. G. Rosenthal, "Ayrton , Michael (1921–1975)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008accessed 24 Jan 2015/ref> was a British arti ...

in 1950, entitled "Talos", was erected on Guildhall Street in 1973. The guildhall, which had served as the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Cambridge, continued to be the local seat of government after the creation of

in 1974. The

Duke Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...

and

Duchess of Cambridge Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...

visited the guildhall and waved to the crowd from the balcony in November 2012. File:Cambridge market place Le Keux 1841.jpg, View of the 18th century shire house (on the left) in the Market Place in 1841 File:cmglee_Cambridge_Guildhall_dinner.jpg, A dinner in the Large Hall of the Cambridge Guildhall viewed from its stage File:cmglee_Cambridge_Guildhall_vaccination.jpg,

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

vaccination in the Large Hall of the Cambridge Guildhall viewed from its main entrance File:TalosCambridge.jpg, View of Cambridge Guildhall in Guildhall Street, with ''Talos'', a sculpture by

, in foreground in 2006

References

External links

The Cambridge Guildhall website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guildhall, Cambridge Government buildings completed in 1939 Culture in Cambridge History of Cambridge Politics of Cambridge

Grade II listed buildings in Cambridge

History

See also

References

External links