Hove Town Hall is the headquarters of

Brighton and Hove City Council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government services ...

. The current building was constructed in 1970 in the

Brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

style by John Wells-Thorpe, to replace the original 1882 Hall which was damaged by fire in 1966.

Original town hall building

The original

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th cen ...

was built by

Alfred Waterhouse Alfred Waterhouse (19 July 1830 – 22 August 1905) was an English architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known f ...

and opened in 1882. It was built in the

gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, out of

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

and

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

, and contained a 2,000 capacity great hall with three balconies, and a tall tower in the central facade. The building cost around £50,000. The organ was built by

Henry Willis Henry Willis (27 April 1821 – 11 February 1901), also known as "Father" Willis, was an English organ player and builder, who is regarded as the foremost organ builder of the Victorian era. His company Henry Willis & Sons remains in busin ...

, and was sold in 1959. The tower contained 12 bells, and their combined weight made them the hevaiest bells in Southern England in the late 19th century. In 1900, the building was used as a part time cinema by James Williamson, and in 1907, the town hall hosted a

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership and ...

meeting at which

Louisa Martindale Louisa Martindale, (30 October 1872 – 5 February 1966) was an English physician, surgeon, and writer. She also served as magistrate on the Brighton bench, was a prison commissioner and a member of the National Council of Women. She served ...

spoke. During 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 ...

, Hove Town Hall was used as a recruitment office, and hosted events for Belgian soldiers and the Belgian royal family. On 9 January 1966, the town hall was damaged by a fire, which destroyed the Great Hall, Council Chamber, offices and the Magistrates' Court. During the fire, the mayor's secretary John Barter went into the building to retrieve the regalia. After the fire, the civic offices were moved to Brooker Hall, whilst the magistrates' court and court offices moved to the western part of the building, which had not been damaged by the fire.

Current town hall building

In October 1968, planning permission was granted for the construction of a new town hall in Hove. The new town hall was built by John Wells-Thorpe in the

Brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ba ...

style, predominantly out of concrete clad. Construction began in 1970, and the town hall was officially opened in 1974 by

Lord Rupert Nevill Lord Rupert Charles Montecute Nevill (29 January 1923 – 19 July 1982) was Chairman of the British Olympic Association from 1966 to 1977 and then its President until his death. As a courtier, he was treasurer and later private secretary to Prin ...

. The building contained a faceted wooden ceiling in the great hall and a concrete entrance with four hexagonal columns. In 1991, the building was extended, adding a Registrar's Office, Citizens Advice Bureau and Tourist information centre, and in 1994, a yellow

Royal Mail , kw, Postya Riel, ga, An Post Ríoga , logo = Royal Mail.svg , logo_size = 250px , type = Public limited company , traded_as = , foundation = , founder = Henry VIII , location = London, England, UK , key_people = * Keith Williams ...

postbox donated by

Draveil Draveil () is a commune in the department of Essonne in the southern suburbs of Paris, France.town twinned A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

with Hove, was placed in front of the town hall. In 2014, a proposal was submitted for replacing the glass with green double-glazed glass and extending the entrance; separately, a request to

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

for the building to become a

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 ...

, as one of the only pieces of post-war architecture in Brighton and Hove was denied. In 2015, the town hall suffered a fire believed to have been caused by an electrical fault in the roof's

solar panel A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a photo ...

s; the black smoke from the fire was visible throughout Brighton and Hove.

References

{{coord, 50.8283, -0.1704, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Hove City and town halls in East Sussex Government buildings completed in 1974