Grove House, also known as Dunstable Municipal Offices, is a municipal building in High Street North,

Dunstable Dunstable ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, east of the Chiltern Hills, north of London. There are several steep chalk escarpments, most noticeable when approaching Dunstable from the ...

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council wa ...

, England. The building, which forms the offices and meeting place of Dunstable 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 building started life as a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

known as the Duke of Bedford's Arms: it was built by a local builder, John Swindall, and was completed in 1747. The house and estate were acquired by a local land-owner, John Miller, and converted into a private residence in the late 18th century. The last

horse race Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic p ...

at the local racecourse, Dunstable Park, which the formed part of the adjoining estate to the south east, Park Farm, took place in 1854. The house was remodelled 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 ...

with a heavy

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 in the late 19th century. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto High Street North; the central bay, which slightly projected forward, featured a

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

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 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 ...

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 on the ground floor and a tall round headed window flanked by

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 supporting an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

and a keystone on the first floor. The outer bays were 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 with architraves and

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 ...

s on both floors, while, at roof level there was an entablature, a cornice and a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. The house, its estate and Park Farm were all acquired by a local businessman, Arthur Bagshawe, in 1920. Following his death, the house and its enlarged estate were bought by Dunstable Corporation in 1936: the house was converted for use by the corporation as offices and the gardens were opened to the public. During the

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 ...

air raid shelters were established in the gardens and, after the war, annual garden fetes were opened by celebrities who included the BBC Radio presenter,

Derek McCulloch Derek Ivor Breashur McCulloch Order of the British Empire, OBE (18 November 1897 – 1 June 1967) was a BBC Radio producer and presenter. He became known as "Uncle Mac" on ''Children's Hour'' and ''Children's Favourites'' and provided the voice ...

, in 1951, the novelist,

Barbara Cartland Dame Mary Barbara Hamilton Cartland, (9 July 1901 – 21 May 2000) published as Barbara Cartland was an English writer, known as the Queen of Romance, who published both contemporary romance, contemporary and historical romance novels, the lat ...

, in 1959 and the actor,

Sam Kydd Samuel John Kydd (15 February 1915 – 26 March 1982) was a British-Irish actor. His best-known roles were in two major British television series of the 1960s, as the smuggler Orlando O'Connor in '' Crane'' and its sequel ''Orlando''. He als ...

, also in 1959. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, the building was briefly used by South Bedfordshire District Council until it moved to new offices on the site of the former

Dunstable North railway station Dunstable North was a railway station on the London and North Western Railway's branch line from Leighton Buzzard which served Dunstable in Bedfordshire from 1848 to 1967. Originally the terminus of the London and North Western Railway's bran ...

in 1989. The newly formed Dunstable Town Council acquired the building and moved into it at that time. As well as being the offices and meeting place for the town council, it became an approved venue for weddings and civil partnership ceremonies.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1747 City and town halls in Bedfordshire Dunstable Grade II listed buildings in Bedfordshire