Chipping Sodbury Town Hall is a municipal building in Broad Street,

Chipping Sodbury Chipping Sodbury is a market town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Sodbury, in the unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire, in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. It was founded in the 12th century by William ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England. The building, which is used as an events venue and also as the meeting place of Chipping Sodbury Town 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

The original building on the site was a guildhall which dated back to the 15th century. Following the dissolution of the chantries in 1547 and a brief subsequent period of private ownership, the site was acquired by the town and restored. It was then re-fronted in 1738 and re-modelled with a new façade, designed in the Perpendicular Gothic style and built in

rubble masonry Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...

with

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 dressings, in 1858. The design of the new façade involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Broad Street; it featured an arched doorway with a

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...

flanked by two-light mullioned windows on the ground floor, a six-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed window on the first floor and a gable above. The gable contained an

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinatio ...

-shaped panel with a crest and was surmounted by a

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

. Internally, the principal room was the main hall which was the meeting place of the

bailiff A bailiff (from Middle English baillif, Old French ''baillis'', ''bail'' "custody") is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. Bailiffs are of various kinds and their offi ...

and the burgesses. The building contained a large chest, made of oak with iron straps, which was known as the parish coffer and was used for storage of valuable documents: it also dated back to the 15th century. In 1894, on the formation of Chipping Sodbury Rural District Council, the bailiff and burgesses resisted transfer of the town hall to the new council and it passed instead, on the instructions of the Charity Commissioners, to the Town Lands Charity. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, the building became the meeting place of the newly formed Sodbury Town Council. After an extensive programme of refurbishment works, which included a new stage in the main hall and new catering facilities, the building re-opened in 1981. The building continued to be used as an events venue and performers in the 21st century included the singer,

Jacqui Dankworth Jacqueline Caryl Dankworth (born 5 February 1963) is a British jazz singer. She is the daughter of jazz singer Cleo Laine and musician John Dankworth. Career Dankworth was born in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England. She attended St. Chri ...

, who gave a concert in the town hall in October 2016, the Chipping Sodbury Music Society who performed a 70th anniversary concert in December 2017 and the boxer,

Frank Bruno Franklin Roy Bruno, (born 16 November 1961) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1982 to 1996. He had a highly publicised and eventful career, both in and out of the ring. The pinnacle of Bruno's boxing career was winning ...

, who gave a talk there in January 2018.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1858 City and town halls in Gloucestershire Grade II listed buildings in Gloucestershire