Heanor Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Street,
Heanor,
Derbyshire, England. The town hall, which is the meeting place of Heanor and Loscoe Town Council, is a grade II
listed building.
History
The building was initially commissioned as "public offices" for the
local board of health, which had been formed in 1863. It was designed in the
Italianate style, was built in red brick with stone dressings and was completed in 1867. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Market Street; the central bay, which projected forward at ground level but with the projection tapering back higher up, featured a round headed doorway with a
fanlight
A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...
and a stone surround on the ground floor; there were five round headed windows with
keystones forming an arcade on the first floor and a series of
modillion
A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...
s supporting a
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 ...
above. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber.
In the 19th century an adjacent building to the north west formed a
lock-up and police station.
The public offices became the meeting place of
Heanor Urban District Council when it was formed in 1894.
In 1908 Fred Buxton of
Langley Mill hired the building to show
moving pictures and a banner was hoisted outside the building advertising its new role as "Buxton's Picture Palace".
[ Then, on 2 March 1910, during the Ilkeston by-election, the ]suffragette
A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
, Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst ('' née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Impo ...
, booked the building and gave a speech in support of the Liberal Party candidate and future Secretary of State for War
The Secretary of State for War, commonly called War Secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The Secretary of State for War headed the War Office and ...
, J. E. B. Seely
John Edward Bernard Seely, 1st Baron Mottistone, (31 May 1868 – 7 November 1947), also known as Jack Seely, was a British Army general and politician. He was a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1904 and a Liberal MP from 1 ...
: the meeting was well supported with hundreds of people in attendance.
The building continued to serve as a meeting place for Heanor Urban District Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be local seat of government when the enlarged Amber Valley Borough Council was formed in 1974. It was subsequently used as a registry office and, after its condition deteriorated, it was saved from demolition in the early 1990s. After an extensive programme of refurbishment works which was completed in June 1995, the building then became the meeting place of Heanor and Loscoe Town Council.[
]
See also
*Listed buildings in Heanor and Loscoe
Heanor and Loscoe is a civil parish in the Amber Valley district of Derbyshire, England. The parish contains ten listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade II*, the middle of ...
References
{{reflist
Government buildings completed in 1867
City and town halls in Derbyshire
Grade II listed buildings in Derbyshire