Hammersmith Town Hall is a municipal building on King Street in Hammersmith. The town hall, which is the headquarters of

Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council Hammersmith and Fulham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. Hammersmith and F ...

, is a Grade II listed building.

History

The building was commissioned to replace an earlier town hall in Hammersmith Broadway which had been designed by J. Henry Richardson 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 ...

, built by

George Wimpey George Wimpey was a British construction firm. Formed in 1880 and based in Hammersmith, it initially operated largely as a road surfacing contractor. The business was acquired by Godfrey Mitchell in 1919, and he developed it into a constructi ...

and completed in 1897. It had become the headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith in 1900. After the old town hall had become inadequate for the council's needs, civic leaders decided to build a new town hall: the site chosen for the new building had previously been occupied by part of the route of the Hammersmith Creek which had to be placed in a culvert to enable the new building to proceed. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the chairman of

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

Ewart Culpin Ewart Gladstone Culpin (3 December 1877 – 1 December 1946) was a British Labour Party politician and town planner who served as the Chairman of London County Council. Biography The son of Ben Ephraim Lamartine and Eliza Culpin, Ewart atten ...

, on 2 July 1938. The new building, which was designed by

Ernest Berry Webber Ernest Berry Webber, (29 April 1896 – 19 December 1963)''England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858–1995'', p. 130. was an English architect, surveyor and town planner best known for his design ...

in a Neo-Georgian style, was completed in 1939. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto the Great West Road; the central section featured a perron, leading up to a doorway, which is now blocked up, on the first floor; there was a recessed arch containing a tall round-headed window on the second floor. On the walls of the perron there were large carved heads depicting Old Father Thames which were designed by George Alexander. Internally, the principal rooms are the council chamber and the mayor's parlour which are in the southern part of the main building and the assembly hall which is in the northern part of the main building. The building suffered bomb damage during

the Blitz The Blitz was a German bombing campaign against the United Kingdom in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press and originated from the term , the German word meaning 'lightning war'. The Germa ...

in 1940 and again in 1944, but was repaired in time for the victory celebrations in 1945. The foyer was redecorated with murals of riverside scenes by Alfred Daniels and John Titcheli in 1956. The town hall became the local seat of government of the enlarged

London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham () is a London borough in West London and which also forms part of Inner London. The borough was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan Boroughs of Hammersmith and Fulham. The borou ...

in 1965. A six-storey extension located to the north of the main building was designed by the borough architect, Dennis Browne, in the brutalist style, and completed in 1975. In November 2019 work began to demolish the extension with a view to creating a civic campus with a public square, a cinema and new residential space. The new civic campus, which was designed by

Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) * Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated communit ...

, is due to open in 2023.

References

External links

{{Commons category, position=left Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham Grade II listed government buildings City and town halls in London Government buildings completed in 1939