County Hall is a former municipal building, now a hotel, in Castle Garth, in

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

, England. The county hall, which was the headquarters and meeting place of

Northumberland County Council Northumberland County Council is a unitary authority in North East England. The population of the non-metropolitan unitary authority at the 2011 census was 316,028. History It was formed in 1889 as the council for the administrative county of N ...

from 1910 to 1981, is a

Grade II 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 ...

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

In the early 20th century the Moot Hall in Newcastle upon Tyne had been the local facility for dispensing justice and the meeting place of

. After deciding that the old Moot Hall was inadequate for their needs, county leaders chose to procure a new county headquarters: the site selected for the new building was within the Moot Hall precincts which formed an exclave of Northumberland County inside the City and County of Newcastle upon Tyne. The new building was designed by J. A. Bain 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 ...

and completed in 1910. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of thirteen bays facing south east; the central section of five bays featured a porch with

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

columns supporting a

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

on the ground floor and

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

on each of five floors above; the left and right sections of had sections of three bays which slightly projected forwards. An extension down to the Side and the top storeys were designed by Cackett, Burns Dick and McKellar and completed in 1933. Following the creation of the county of

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcastl ...

in 1974 the County Hall still remained extraterritorial to the county of

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land on ...

, and in the late 1970s Northumberland County Council decided to re-establish County Hall in

Morpeth Morpeth may refer to: *Morpeth, New South Wales, Australia ** Electoral district of Morpeth, a former electoral district of the Legislative Assembly in New South Wales * Morpeth, Ontario, Canada * Morpeth, Northumberland, England, UK ** Morpeth (UK ...

, to provide them with a meeting place within the actual territorial limits of the Northumberland county; the county council completed the move to Morpeth in April 1981. The building in Newcastle was converted into a hotel, becoming the "Vermont Hotel" under the management of Lincoln Group in 1993. Visitors to the hotel at that time included the singer, Engelbert Humperdinck, in 2001. Meanwhile, the film, ''

School for Seduction ''School for Seduction'' is a 2004 British film directed by Sue Heel. The plot involves an Italian temptress (played by Kelly Brook) who arrives at a school in Newcastle to teach a group of Geordies about the art of romance. Incidental music Musi ...

'', starring the actress,

Kelly Brook Kelly Ann Parsons (born 23 November 1979), known professionally as Kelly Brook, is an English model, actress, and media personality. She is known for her modelling work in the UK, and in the US for her role as Prudence on the NBC sitcom ''One ...

, was filmed in the hotel in 2004. After Lincoln Group went into administration in January 2012, the hotel changed ownership and was acquired by Gainford Hotels in April 2012. The television presenters,

Ant & Dec Ant & Dec are a British television presenter, television presenting duo, consisting of Anthony McPartlin (born 18 November 1975) and Declan Donnelly (born 25 September 1975), from Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Formed after their meeting as chil ...

, visited the hotel for a charity event in May 2015.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne N Government buildings completed in 1910