Dulverton Town Hall is a municipal building in Fore Street in Dulverton,

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, England. The building, which is the meeting place of Dulverton 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 first municipal building on the site was a market hall which was completed in 1760. It was replaced by the current structure, which was designed in the neoclassical style, 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 ...

and was completed in around 1866. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Fore Street: it was originally arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly hall on the first floor. The first floor was fenestrated by

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. After market traders moved to other towns, use of the market hall on the ground floor declined, and it was converted for retail use in the 1870s. The openings in the outer and central bays were infilled with doorways, while the openings in the other bays were infilled with round headed windows with radiating glazing bars. In the late 19th century,

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...

hearings took place in the building. A porch and an external double staircase was added to a design by Sir Albert Richardson in 1927. The staircase was straight rather than curved, was decorated by wrought iron railings and was supported by a stone arch: it led to a first-floor porch with wrought iron bars supporting a wrought iron frieze with

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 ...

s and a flat canopy. The elaborate porch has been described by one architectural historian as "one of Richardson's best works". The upper hall was fitted out with a

proscenium arch A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

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 ...

, the building was used a school to teach children evacuated from the major centres of population. The upper hall was also used as a cinema for

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

personnel based at Knightshayes Court and other USAF bases in the local area. The lower ground floor was used as an antiques centre in the late 20th century, and then became a thrift shop, operated by the town hall management committee, with the proceeds being applied to the upkeep of the building. The lower ground floor also became the meeting place of Dulverton Town Council. Meanwhile, the upper hall reverted to use as a cinema, trading as Dulverton Films, in 2010.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1866 City and town halls in Somerset Grade II listed buildings in Somerset Dulverton