Cleckheaton Town Hall is a municipal building in Bradford Road,

Cleckheaton Cleckheaton is a town in the Metropolitan borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated south of Bradford, east of Brighouse, west of Batley and south-west of Leeds. It is a ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Spenborough Urban District 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

After significant population growth in the second half of the 19th century, particularly associated with

carding Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles, cleans and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web or sliver (textiles), sliver suitable for subsequent processing. This is achieved by passing the fibres between differentially moving su ...

(disentangling fibres) for the textile industry, civic leaders decided to procure a town hall to celebrate the

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...

: the site they selected had been occupied by a school and some residential properties on the north side of Church Street. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by William Anderton of Elm Bank on 21 June 1890. It was designed by Mawson & Hudson of

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

in the Queen Anne style and was built at a cost of £13,900, which was financed, in part, by

public subscription Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word ''subscribere''. Historical Praenumeration An early form ...

. It was officially opened by the Chairman of the Town Hall Committee, Joseph Law, on 10 February 1892. A plaque was subsequently placed in the room adjacent to the assembly hall to commemorate the life of Elymas Wadsworth, Law's predecessor, who had chaired the committee throughout the development stage of the town hall. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto Bradford Road; the right hand of the two central bays featured a steep flight of steps leading up to an arched doorway with a square

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

above. The end bay on the left featured an

Ipswich window An Ipswich window is a variety of oriel window in which the window juts out from the main wall on an upper floor without reaching down to the ground floor. However, its distinguishing feature which marks it as different from a Venetian window is i ...

on the first floor with a gable above, while the end bay on the right, which projected forward, featured a small stone balcony with two tall

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s and a flagpole on the second floor within the gable. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the assembly hall, the latter of which featured a

proscenium arch A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

. The clock was designed and manufactured by

Potts of Leeds Potts of Leeds was a major British manufacturer of public clocks, based in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. History William Potts was born in December 1809 and was apprenticed to Samuel Thompson, a Darlington clockmaker. In 1833, at the age of 24, ...

and the bells were cast by

John Taylor & Co John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, ...

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second larg ...

. The building became the headquarters of Cleckheaton Urban District Council, when it was formed in 1894, and of the enlarged Spenborough Urban District Council, when it was established in 1915. On 20 May 1926, the town hall was the venue for an important speech by the future leader of the National Liberal Party,

Sir John Simon John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon, (28 February 1873 – 11 January 1954), was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War. He is one of only three peop ...

, who called for unity in the wake of the collapse of the

General Strike A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...

: he said the British people should "retrace the false steps and acknowledge a grievous error ". After the council was granted a

charter of incorporation A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

in July 1955, the town hall became the headquarters of the new

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

. However, it ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Kirklees Council Kirklees Council is the local authority providing most local government services for the borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council and one of five constituent councils of the West Yorkshire Combined Aut ...

was formed in 1974. A stained glass window which depicted the

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 ...

Spenborough Spenborough was, from 1915 to 1974, a local government district in the administrative county of Yorkshire, West Riding, England. Spenborough was created as an urban district in 1915 by the merger of Cleckheaton, Gomersal and Liversedge urban ...

was installed in the town hall after the council was abolished. The town hall became a regular venue for the annual Cleckheaton Folk Festival which promoted local musical and literary initiatives after it was launched in 1988.

References

{{City and town halls in West Yorkshire Government buildings completed in 1892 City and town halls in West Yorkshire Cleckheaton Grade II listed buildings in West Yorkshire

History

See also

References