The County Hall is a municipal facility on George Row in

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

, England, which was the headquarters of

Northamptonshire County Council Northamptonshire County Council was the county council that governed the non-metropolitan county of Northamptonshire in England. It was originally formed in 1889 by the Local Government Act 1888, recreated in 1974 by the Local Government Act 19 ...

until it was dissolved in 2021. 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 ...

. The building is adjacent to the former

Sessions House A sessions house in the United Kingdom was historically a courthouse that served as a dedicated court of quarter sessions, where criminal trials were held four times a year on quarter days. Sessions houses were also used for other purposes to do w ...

which is now used as a Tourist Information Centre.

History

The building is an 18th-century house which was rebuilt to a design by James Milne in 1845. Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

, which established county councils in every county, it became the meeting place of

. It was remodelled to a design by Edmund Law to accommodate a council chamber in 1890 and further altered to a design by

Sir Aston Webb Sir Aston Webb (22 May 1849 – 21 August 1930) was a British architect who designed the principal facade of Buckingham Palace and the main building of the Victoria and Albert Museum, among other major works around England, many of them in par ...

to create more meeting rooms in 1900. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing George Row; the four left hand bays contained round 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 and right hand bay featured a wooden doorway; each of the bays was flanked by

Tuscan order The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but with u ...

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 on the ground floor; there were five sash windows with alternating segmental and triangular

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 ...

s flanked by

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

half columns on the first floor. The principal rooms were the council chamber and a reception room known as the "Octagon room". As the county council's responsibilities grew, it needed more office space than was available in County Hall. It acquired a former gaol (built 1791–1794) immediately south-east of the Sessions Room and County Hall, and converted that to be offices. In 1939 the council built a large neo-Georgian office building to the east of the old gaol, linked to the older buildings by corridors to the rear. The new building was called County Offices and had its main frontage onto Guildhall Road. It was designed by the county architect, George Henry Lewin, and was faced in Ketton stone. The county council was granted a

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 ...

whilst the building was under construction, and the arms were carved into the stonework above the main doorway. The outbreak of 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 ...

meant that no official opening ceremony was held for the County Offices. The county council's administrative responsibilities continued to grow, and by the early 21st century its offices were spread across some twelve buildings around the town. In 2013, it decided to procure a single administration centre in which council officers and their departments would be co-located on a derelict site just south of County Hall. The new building was named "One Angel Square". The building was designed by BDP, built by

Galliford Try Galliford Try plc is a British construction company based in Leicester, England. It was created through a merger in 2000 of two businesses: Try Group, founded in 1908 in London, and Galliford, founded in 1916. Formerly involved in house-buildi ...

at a cost of £53 million and officially opened by the

Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government The secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, also referred to as the levelling up secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the overall leadership and strategic direction o ...

Sajid Javid Sajid Javid (; born 5 December 1969) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from June 2021 to July 2022, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2018 to 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer f ...

, in October 2017. The county council subsequently announced the sale and lease back of One Angel Square to Canada Life Investments, in order to raise funds for the provision of services, in February 2018. The county council announced in June 2018 that it was considering selling County Hall but the proposed transaction was subsequently abandoned. The county council continued to use the council chamber at County Hall for meetings until the council was abolished in March 2021.

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in Northamptonshire N Government buildings completed in 1845 Buildings and structures in Northampton