Downham Market Town Hall is a municipal building in Bridge Street,

Downham Market Downham Market, sometimes simply referred to as Downham, is a market town and civil parish in Norfolk, England. It lies on the edge of the Fens, on the River Great Ouse, approximately 11 miles south of King's Lynn, 39 miles west of Norwich and 3 ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England. The structure, which is managed by Downham Market 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

Following their appointment in 1835, the first municipal building procured by the

improvement commissioners Boards of improvement commissioners were ''ad hoc'' urban local government boards created during the 18th and 19th centuries in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its predecessors the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Irel ...

in Downham Market was a courthouse on London Road in 1861. They then decided to commission a new civic building, which was financed by

public subscription Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word ''subscribere''. Historical Praenumeration An early form ...

, to celebrate the

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...

; the site they selected was on the west side of the Market Square. The new building was designed by John Johnson in the

Renaissance Revival style Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range ...

, built by Bennett Brothers in yellow brick and brown

carrstone Carrstone (or carstone, also known as Silsoe, heathstone, ironstone or gingerbread) is a sedimentary sandstone conglomerate formed during the Cretaceous period. It varies in colour from light to dark rusty ginger. Used as a building stone it can be ...

at a cost of £1,730 and was officially opened by the

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

, William Tyssen-Amherst, on 20 October 1887. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the Market Square; the central bay featured a 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 ...

flanked by square

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

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 ...

and a

balustraded A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its con ...

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 ...

. On the first floor, there was a central round-headed French door, while the other bays were fenestrated by square-headed windows on the ground floor and round-headed windows on the first floor. At roof level, there was a balustrade, a panel inscribed with the words "Town Hall" and a central gable containing a shield and a stone inscribed with the date of construction. On the north side of the building there was a short tower with a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. The ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were an assembly hall, a corn exchange, a library and a reading room. The local literary institute, which had been established in 1865 following a gift by

Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, (21 July 182621 April 1893; known as Lord Stanley from 1851 to 1869) was a British statesman. He served as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs twice, from 1866 to 1868 and from 1874 to 1878, and also ...

, occupied the library and reading room following completion of the town hall. Improvement commissioners' districts were converted into urban districts in 1894, and so the building passed to the new Downham Market Urban District Council. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged King's Lynn and West Norfolk District Council was formed in 1974. Downham Market Town Council took over management of the building in 2008 and carried out a programme of refurbishment works, which included the installation of a lift, in 2013. The Downham Market Heritage Centre, which had been established as a local history museum on the first floor of the town hall in the early 21st century, rapidly outgrew its accommodation and relocated to the old fire station in Priory Road in March 2016.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1887 City and town halls in Norfolk Downham Market Grade II listed buildings in Norfolk