Faversham Guildhall is a municipal building in the Market Place in

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient British t ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. The structure, which was the meeting place of Faversham Borough 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 guildhall in Faversham was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

structure on the east side of Tanners Street; this was replaced by a second guildhall on the east side of Court Street in 1547.

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". El ...

visited this guildhall and enjoyed a civic banquet there in 1572. The town received a

royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, bu ...

, allowing it to hold markets, from

King Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disag ...

in 1546. The market initially took the form of a series of stalls in the area now known as the Market Place but in the mid-16th century it was decided to build a permanent structure. The new market hall was a timber-framed structure with a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

finish which was completed in 1574. It was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. The original design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the east side of the Market Place: there was a row of

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 on the first floor. In 1605 the borough council took over the building for use as its third guildhall. Following a disastrous fire, caused by the excesses of local people celebrating British military successes in the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

, the building had to be rebuilt in 1814. The enlarged structure, which preserved the original arcading, was designed by Charles Drayson in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassicism, Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The pr ...

and featured a three-stage tower at the southwest corner; the tower involved an arched doorway on the ground floor, a round-headed sash window on the first floor, a clock on the second floor and an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

with 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 ...

above. As part of the re-building, the building was extended by an extra two bays on the east and west facing elevations; the north facing elevation featured a

Venetian window A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian a ...

with a

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 ...

above containing a

cartouche In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...

depicting the borough

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 ...

in the tympanum, while the south facing elevation featured two round headed windows with a similar pediment also containing a cartouche. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber, on the first floor, which contained wooden panels listing the mayors of the town since the late 13th century as well as a series of miniature photographs of mayors since the early 19th century. County court hearings and borough council meetings were held in the guildhall until 1942, when the local court hearings were discontinued and the borough council relocated to the Alexander Centre. The Alexander Centre ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Swale Borough Council Swale or Swales may refer to: Topography * Swale (landform), a low tract of land ** Bioswale, landform designed to remove silt and pollution ** Swales, found in the formation of Hummocky cross-stratification Geography * River Swale, in North Y ...

in 1974, but the guildhall subsequently became the meeting place of Faversham Town Council. A paving stone to celebrate the life of the locally-born soldier, Lieutenant General Sir Philip Neame of the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is a corps of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces and is heade ...

, who, as a junior officer, was awarded the

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British Armed Forces and may be awarded posthumously. It was previously ...

for his actions at

Neuve-Chapelle Neuve-Chapelle ( vls, Nieuwkappel) is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in the Hauts-de-France region of France. It was the site of a First World War battle in 1915. Geography Neuve-Chapelle is situated some northeast of Béthune and ...

in France during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, was unveiled outside the guildhall by Lieutenant-General Sir Mark Mans on 19 December 2014. The guildhall became an approved venue for weddings and civil partnerships in January 2019. Works of art in the guildhall included a portrait by Joseph Clover of a local benefactor, Henry Wreight, who paid for the rebuilding of the

Faversham Almshouses Faversham Almshouses are Grade II listed Almshouses in Faversham, Kent. History Almshouses for six widows were founded and endowed by Thomas Mendfield in 1614. In 1721 Thomas Napleton founded and endowed houses for six men. In 1840, Henry W ...

in the early 19th century.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1574 Market halls City and town halls in Kent Faversham Grade II* listed buildings in Kent

History

See also

References