Holborn Town hall is a municipal building on

High Holborn High Holborn ( ) is a street in Holborn and Farringdon Without, Central London, which forms a part of the A40 route from London to Fishguard. It starts in the west at the eastern end of St Giles High Street and runs past the Kingsway and ...

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its root ...

, London. It 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 was a substantial structure on the corner of

Gray's Inn Road Gray's Inn Road (or Grays Inn Road) is an important road in the Bloomsbury district of Central London, in the London Borough of Camden. The road begins at the City of London boundary, where it bisects High Holborn, and ends at King's Cross and ...

and

Clerkenwell Road Clerkenwell Road is a street in London. It runs west–east from Gray's Inn Road in the west, to Goswell Road in the east. Its continuation at either end is Theobald's Road and Old Street respectively. Clerkenwell Road and Theobalds Road we ...

which had been designed by Lewis Isaacs in an

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 Brown & Robinson of Finsbury and completed in 1879. Following the creation of the

Metropolitan Borough of Holborn The Metropolitan Borough of Holborn was a metropolitan borough in the County of London between 1900 and 1965, when it was amalgamated with the Metropolitan Borough of St Pancras and the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead to form the London Boroug ...

in 1900, consideration was given to expanding this building but this proposal was rejected on the grounds that the old building would be difficult to adapt. After being used as a concert hall during the first half of the 20th century, it was demolished in the 1960s. Instead it was decided to extend an existing building on

which had been designed by William Rushworth in the French Renaissance style and which had opened as a public library in 1894. The design for the existing (eastern) wing had involved a narrow main frontage with four bays facing onto High Holborn; there were two arched entrances both flanked by Corinthian order

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s on the ground floor; there were oriel windows on the first and second floors and smaller windows on the third and fourth floors with an oculus above. The foundation stone for the extension to this building to create a new town hall was laid by the mayor, William Smith, on 27 October 1906. The design involved creating a new central wing and a new western wing, in a similar and symmetrical style to the existing eastern wing, based on the plans of

Septimus Warwick Septimus Warwick (1881-1953) was a British architect who started his career as a designer of town halls in a partnership with H. Austen Hall. Warwick designed Lambeth Town Hall on Brixton Hill and Acre Lane, Brixton, London SW2, a Grade II li ...

and H. Austen Hall. The works were carried out by John Greenwood Limited and the new town hall was officially opened by the Lord Mayor, Sir George Truscott, on 13 October 1908. A

wrought-iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" t ...

balcony bearing a borough

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

made by the

Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts The Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts (1898–1966) was a company of modern artists and designers associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement, founded by Walter Gilbert. The guild worked in metal, wood, plaster, bronze, tapestry, glass and ...

was installed in the middle of the central section on the first floor. The principal rooms were a court room on the ground floor a council chamber at the rear of the building on the first floor. The

First International Syndicalist Congress The First International Syndicalist Congress was a meeting of European and Latin American syndicalist organizations at Holborn Town Hall in London from September 27 to October 2, 1913. Upon a proposal by the Dutch National Labor Secretariat (NAS) ...

, a meeting of European and Latin American syndicalist organizations, was held at the town hall from 27 September to 2 October 1913. A plaque, manufactured by De La Rue, commemorating the efforts of the borough in contributing to the Wings for Victory Week, was erected on the wall just inside the right hand doorway in 1943. Another plaque, commemorating their contribution to Salute the Soldier Week, was erected there the following year. The building on High Holborn ceased to function as the local of seat of government when the enlarged

London Borough of Camden The London Borough of Camden () is a London borough in Inner London. Camden Town Hall, on Euston Road, lies north of Charing Cross. The borough was established on 1 April 1965 from the area of the former boroughs of Hampstead, Holborn, and ...

was formed in 1965 and was subsequently converted for alternative uses including restaurant use (on the ground floor) and offices (above). The freehold ownership of the building was acquired by a private investor for £22 million in September 2019.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1894 City and town halls in London Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Camden