The Corn Exchange is a commercial building in Market Street,

Witney Witney is a market town on the River Windrush in West Oxfordshire in the county of Oxfordshire, England. It is west of Oxford. The place-name "Witney" is derived from the Old English for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, England. The structure, which is used as a public events venue, 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

Until the mid-19th century, corn merchants traded from the ground floor of

Witney Town Hall Witney Town Hall is a municipal structure in Spring Lane in Market Square, Witney, Oxfordshire, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Witney Town Council, is a Grade II* listed building. History The first town hall in Witney was ...

. In the early 1860s, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company, to be known as the "Witney Corn Exchange and Public Rooms Company", to finance and commission a purpose-built corn exchange for the town. The site they chose in Market Street had accommodated the "Corn Returns Office", a structure, which was designed in the

Tudor style Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

using

timber-frame Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

construction, and which dated from 1593. The new building was designed by John Collier of

Putney Putney () is a district of southwest London, England, in the London Borough of Wandsworth, southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. History Putney is an ancient paris ...

in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The pr ...

, built by a local builder, Malachi Bartlett, in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone at a cost of £2,500 and was officially opened on 17 September 1863. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of three bays facing onto Market Street. The central bay featured a round headed doorway with a

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...

and a rusticated surround. There was a

cross-window A cross-window is a window whose lights are defined by a mullion and a transom, forming a cross.Curl, James Stevens (2006). ''Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture'', 2nd ed., OUP, Oxford and New York, p. 214. . The Late ...

, with a segmental

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 pedimen ...

and a

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

, supported by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

, on the first floor. The outer bays were fenestrated by segmental headed

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 with rusticated

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

s on the ground floor and by square headed sash windows with

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

s on the first floor. At roof level there was an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

inscribed with the words "Corn Exchange", a

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

ed cornice and a central pediment. The central pediment contained a clock, which was flanked by pairs of

pilaster In classical architecture 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 ...

s, in the tympanum. Internally, the principal room was the main hall which was long and wide. The use of the building as a corn exchange declined significantly in the wake of the

Great Depression of British Agriculture The Great Depression of British Agriculture occurred during the late nineteenth century and is usually dated from 1873 to 1896. Contemporaneous with the global Long Depression, Britain's agricultural depression was caused by the dramatic fall in gr ...

in the late 19th century. After the area was advanced to the status of

urban district Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (urban subdivision) * Neighbourhood Specific subdivisions in some countries: * Urban districts of Denmark * Urban districts of Germany * Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...

in 1895, the new civic leaders decided to hold their meetings in the corn exchange, rather than in

. The council went on to raise the necessary money to acquire the corn exchange, after the Witney Corn Exchange and Public Rooms Company was placed into liquidation in January 1911. During the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the local branch of the

Volunteer Training Corps The Volunteer Training Corps was a voluntary home defence reserve force in the United Kingdom during World War I. Early development After war had been declared in August 1914, there was a popular demand for a means of service for those men who wer ...

used the corn exchange for drill practice on a weekly basis. Witney Urban District Council relocated from the corn exchange to a large

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

property at 26 Church Green in 1936. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the corn exchange was requisitioned for use as an entertainment place for soldiers and was also used by the council for fund raising in support of War Weapons Week. The building became very dilapidated in the 1960s and was closed for public use in 1968. A local petition was initiated, demanding that the building be restored, in the 1970s. Witney Town Council acquired the corn exchange in July 1977: an extensive programme of refurbishment works costing £150,000 was carried out and the building was re-opened by the mayor, Michael Chadwick, in February 1979. The building was remodelled internally, to enable the ground floor to be used as a cinema, in 1992. Two programmes from the

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

show, ''

Gardeners' Question Time ''Gardeners' Question Time'' is a long-running BBC Radio 4 programme in which amateur gardeners can put questions to a panel of experts. History The first programme was broadcast in the North and Northern Ireland Home Service of the BBC at 22 ...

'', were recorded in the building in February 2004. The ground floor was further upgraded when tiered seating was installed in 2022, enabling the building to be re-opened by the mayor, Liz Duncan, as an arts and performance hub in March 2023.

References

{{reflist Commercial buildings completed in 1863 Witney Grade II listed buildings in Oxfordshire

History

See also

References