County Hall is a municipal facility at Martineau Lane in Norwich, Norfolk. It is the headquarters of Norfolk County Council.

History

For much of the 20th century meetings of Norfolk County Council had taken place in the Shirehall in Market Avenue. The education department, and some other departments, had moved to new premises at Thorpe Road in Norwich in 1929. After deciding that the existing premises were inadequate for their needs, county leaders decided to procure a new building: the site they selected had been occupied by Bracondale Lodge, a country house which had been commissioned by Dr

Philip Meadows Martineau The Martineau family is an intellectual, business and political family, political dynasty associated first with Norwich and later also London and Birmingham, England. The family were prominent Unitarianism, Unitarians; a room in London's Essex ...

, a clinician at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, in 1793. Bracondale Lodge had been acquired by Jeremiah Colman MP in 1877 and had remained in the ownership of the Colman family until it was demolished to make way for County Hall in 1966. The new building was designed by Reginald Uren in the

Modern style The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native ...

, built at a cost of £2.5 million and was officially opened by

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

on 24 May 1968. The design involved for the 10-storey tower (it had a two-storey podium and eight storeys above) involved continuous bands of glazing with Hathernware faience tiles above and below. There were also low-rise blocks to the south west and north east of the tower access to which was from a roundabout on Martineau Lane. In the 1980s an emergency control centre was established in the basement in case of a

nuclear attack Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and committee rooms. The Norfolk Police headquarters was accommodated within the building. When RAF Coltishall closed in November 2006 a

SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force. Originall ...

, which had acted as a gate guardian at the RAF station, was moved to County Hall and installed to the west of the main building. In August 2013, following an application from the county council, English Heritage decided not to list County Hall as the building did not meet the criteria for listing post-1945 buildings. A major refurbishment of the building was carried out at a cost of circa £60 million between 2013 and 2019.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Norwich N Government buildings completed in 1968