Grimsby Town Hall is a municipal building in Town Hall Square in

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

, England. The building, which is the headquarters of

North East Lincolnshire Council North East Lincolnshire Council is the local authority of North East Lincolnshire. It is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It was established follow ...

, 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 town hall in Grimsby, which was located near Grimsby Minster, was completed in the 13th century; this was replaced by the second town hall, which was built in a similar area, in 1391 and by the third, also in a similar area, in 1780. After the third town hall became inadequate, civic leaders decided to procure a fourth town hall; the site they selected had previously been an area of open land known as Six Acres Field. The new building was designed by

Bellamy and Hardy Bellamy and Hardy was an architectural practice in Lincoln, England, that specialised particularly in the design of public buildings and non-conformist chapels. Pearson Bellamy had established his own architectural practice by 1845 and he entere ...

and John Giles in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

and the design work was superintended by James Fowler; it was built by the local building firm of John Brown and completed in 1863. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Town Hall Square with the end bays slightly projected forward and decorated with

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order ...

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s; the central section of seven bays featured a single-storey

tetrastyle A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

with paired

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

and a

balustrade 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 ...

d balcony; there was a round headed French door flanked by round headed windows on the first floor. Above the first floor windows were six roundels depicting key people in the town's history:

King Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring ro ...

(who granted land to the town's freemen), Archbishop

John Whitgift John Whitgift (c. 1530 – 29 February 1604) was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583 to his death. Noted for his hospitality, he was somewhat ostentatious in his habits, sometimes visiting Canterbury and other towns attended by a retinue of 8 ...

(who was born in the town),

Gervase Holles Gervase Holles (9 March 1607 – 10 February 1675) was an English lawyer, antiquarian and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1642. He fought in the Royalist army in the English Civil War. Holles was the son of Frescheville ...

, (who served as a local member of parliament during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

), Charles Pelham, 4th Earl of Yarborough (who served as High Steward of Great Grimsby),

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...

and Prince Albert. Internally, the principal room was a large assembly hall. The local girls' school, which was completed in 1863 and later became the Doughty Learning Centre, and the corporation grammar school, which was completed in 1867 and later became the registrar's office, formed single-storey flanking pavilions to the town hall. The town hall was extended to the rear to a design by E. W. Farebrother and John Buchan to create a courthouse, a council chamber, a banqueting room, a police station and some police cells in 1887. Stained glass windows, designed by G. King and Son, were installed in the council chamber in 1955 and the police moved out of the building to a new police station in Victoria Street in September 1957. The police cells, located in the basement, were subsequently converted to create a series of local history exhibits entitled the "Time Trap Museum".

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 ...

, accompanied by the

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not produc ...

, visited the town hall and met with civic leaders on 12 July 1977. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Great Grimsby County Borough Council for much of the 20th century and remained the local seat of government when Great Grimsby District Council was formed, with the same boundaries, in 1974. Following the abolition of

Humberside County Council Humberside County Council was the county council of the non-metropolitan county of Humberside in northern England. History Humberside was a non-metropolitan county governed by Humberside County Council and nine non-metropolitan district councils. ...

in 1996, it became the home of the new

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

, at that time. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by George Jennison of

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1863 City and town halls in Lincolnshire Grade II listed buildings in Lincolnshire Buildings and structures in Grimsby