Cleethorpes Town Hall is a municipal structure in Knoll Street, Cleethorpes,

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Cleethorpes Borough 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, mainly associated with the seaside tourism industry, Cleethorpes became an urban district in 1894. In this context civic leaders decided to procure a council house: the site selected was open land owned by Councillor Henry Kelly. The new building was designed by Herbert Scaping in the

Baroque style The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

, built in red brick with stone dressings by Henry Marrows and was opened in 1905. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Knoll Street; the middle bay featured a porch with a rusticated stone surround supporting a balustrade; on the first floor there was a sash window which was flanked by two pairs of Ionic order columns which supported a modillioned

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

with a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the f ...

in the centre of the tympanum. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber. The area was advanced to the status of

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 ...

with the council house as its headquarters in 1936. The council house continued to serve as the headquarters of Cleethorpes Borough Council for much of the 20th century and continued to be the local seat of government after Cleethorpes District Council was formed in 1974.

Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, (born Lady Alice Christabel Montagu Douglas Scott; 25 December 1901 – 29 October 2004) was the wife of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, the third son of King George V and Queen Mary. She was the mothe ...

visited the building, as part of the celebrations to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the founding of the

Royal Lincolnshire Regiment The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments ...

, on 8 September 1985. In order to accommodate the increasing accommodation requirements of council officers and their departments, new civic offices, designed by William Saunders & Partners in the postmodern style were built to the northeast of the council house and opened in 1987. During the 1980s the building became known as the "Cleethorpes Town Hall": however, it ceased to be the local seat of government when

North East Lincolnshire Council North East Lincolnshire Council is the local authority of North East Lincolnshire. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It was established following the abolition of Humberside ...

became the

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

, with its offices in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of L ...

, in 1996. The

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

, David Cameron, accompanied by the

Duke of Kent Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edwar ...

, visited the town hall on armed forces day in June 2016. In the town hall there is an iconic statue entitled ''

The Boy with the Leaking Boot ''The Boy with the Leaking Boot'' is a statue showing a young boy, with a bare right foot, holding up his right boot and looking at it. The statue is about tall, and in many cases forms a fountain, with water emerging from the toe of the boot ...

'', which had been given to the town by the Swedish vice-consul, John Carlbom, and installed in Kingsway Gardens, in 1918. After the statue was repeatedly vandalised, it was relocated to the landing half way up the staircase in the town hall and, instead, a replica was installed in Kingsway Gardens.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1904 City and town halls in Lincolnshire Cleethorpes Grade II listed buildings in Lincolnshire