Hastings Town Hall is a municipal building in Queen's Road,

Hastings Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...

East Sussex East Sussex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England on the English Channel coast. It is bordered by Kent to the north and east, West Sussex to the west, and Surrey to the north-west. The largest settlement in East Su ...

, England. The town hall, which was the meeting place of

Hastings Borough Council Hastings Borough Council is the local authority for the borough of Hastings, in the county of East Sussex, England. The borough is divided into 12 wards but has no civil parishes, the entire district being an unparished area. The council is based ...

, 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 the town was built at the expense of local members of parliament,

John Pulteney John Pulteney (before 1668 – 2 May 1726), of St James's, Westminster and Harefield, Middlesex, was an English lawyer and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1695 to 1710. Early life Pulteney was the son ...

and

Peter Gott Peter Gott (22 May 1653 – 16 April 1712), of Stanmer, Sussex and Hatton Garden, London, was an English ironmaster and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1690 and 1712. Early life Gott was the eldest son of Samuel Gott, iron ...

, in the High Street in 1700. It was replaced by 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 ...

ed structure which was built on the same site and completed in 1823. It was arcaded on the ground floor to allow markets to be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. In the 1870s, following significant population growth largely associated with the seaside tourism industry, civic leaders decided to procure a more substantial town hall: the site they selected was a triangular plot in Queen's Road which had been occupied by a row of terraced houses. The new building was the subject of a design competition which was won by the local architect, Henry Ward. It was designed in the English Gothic style and officially opened by the mayor, Councillor W. F. Revill, on 7 September 1881. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Queen's Road; the central bay featured an arched doorway, a stone balcony and a pair of tall stained glass

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

s with bar

tracery Tracery is an architecture, architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of Molding (decorative), moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the s ...

with cusped circles (with bars radiating from a central

rose window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...

) on the first floor with a gable above. The doorway and the windows on the first floor, including those in the outer bays which also employed paired lancet windows, were all flanked by colonettes. Four carved panels were erected on the eastern side of the building illustrating "Hastings Fishermen boarding French Pirates", "The Landing of the French and their Defeat", "Queen Elizabeth Granting the Charter to the Corporation" and "Cinque Port Ships Going to meet the Armada". Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour. The area became a

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...

, with the town hall as its headquarters in 1888. The mayor, Councillor E. Armitage Hocking, received the colours of the

5th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment The 1st Cinque Ports Rifle Volunteers was a part-time unit of the British Army first raised from the Cinque Ports of Kent and Sussex in 1859. It later became the 5th (Cinque Ports) Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. During the First World Wa ...

at the town hall on 5 August 1914 before the unit was deployed to France at the start of 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 ...

, and the then mayor, Councillor William Perrins, set out from the town hall to meet

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...

on his visit to the town near the end of the war on 30 August 1918. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the county borough council for much of the 20th century and remained the local seat of government after the formation of the enlarged

in 1974. The borough council subsequently established modern municipal offices at Aquila House in Breeds Place (renamed Muriel Matters House in 2016); however, following an extensive refurbishment, the town hall was re-opened as the local register office in March 2016.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1881 City and town halls in East Sussex Buildings and structures in Hastings Grade II listed buildings in East Sussex