Jarrow Town Hall is a municipal building in Grange Road,
Jarrow,
Tyne and Wear
Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newc ...
, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Jarrow Borough Council, 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
Following significant population growth, largely associated with the
shipbuilding
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...
industry, the town was incorporated as a
municipal borough
Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...
in May 1875. The borough council established itself in some offices on the corner of Grange Road and Wylam Street which were referred to as the "Corporation Chambers". These offices included a council chamber, a town clerk's office and a medical officer's office.
In the late 19th century civic leaders decided to demolish the old Corporation Chambers and build a more substantial structure on the same site.
The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Lady Gertrude Palmer, the wife of the local
member of parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
,
Sir Charles Palmer, on 9 October 1902.
[ The new building was designed by a local architect, Fred Rennoldson, in the ]Baroque style
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
, built in red brick with terracotta
Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous.
In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...
facings at a cost of £12,000 and was officially opened by Sir Charles Palmer on 15 June 1904.[
The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Grange Road with a ]turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
, which slightly projected forward, in the south east corner; the fourth bay from the left contained an arched doorway flanked by 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 supporting a moulded surround; there was a three-light mullion
A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...
ed window on the first floor flanked by pilasters supporting an open pediment containing the 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 ...
; above that there was a tower with an octagonal cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, fro ...
.[ The other bays contained three-light mullioned windows on the first floor and there was a balustrade at roof level; the third bay from the left featured a dormer window with a shaped surround.][ Internally, the principal rooms were the courtroom, which was used for county court hearings and was accessed from the Wylam Street entrance,][ and the council chamber.][ A plaque, which commemorated the lives of members of the 1st Durham Engineers who had died in the ]Second Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the South ...
, was relocated from the regiment's drill hall to the town hall shortly after the latter opened.
The town hall was the starting point for the Jarrow March
The Jarrow March of 5–31 October 1936, also known as the Jarrow Crusade, was an organised protest against the unemployment and poverty suffered in the English town of Jarrow, near Newcastle upon Tyne, during the 1930s. Around 200 men (or "Cru ...
, a protest organised by the borough council over local poverty and, in particular, the impact on the local community of the closure of Palmer's Shipyard, a business venture which Sir Charles Palmer had founded in 1852. An original banner carried by the marchers on their journey to London was retained and later placed on display in the town hall.
A roll of honour, which commemorated the lives of local people who had died in the Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, was installed in the town hall shortly after the end of that war. A projecting clock was installed on the façade of the building in 1951[ by the Synchronome Company; it sounds the ]Westminster chimes
The Westminster Quarters, from its use at the Palace of Westminster, is a melody used by a set of four quarter bells to mark each quarter-hour. It is also known as the Westminster Chimes, Cambridge Quarters or Cambridge Chimes from its place of ...
on five bells. A plaque in the Town Hall commemorates the 'Surrey Fund' set up by Sir John Jarvis in the 1930s, as well as the 1951 Festival of Britain
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people:
...
, in connection with the installation of the clock. Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the town hall on 29 October 1954.[
The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Jarrow Borough Council but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged ]South Tyneside Council
South Tyneside Council is the local authority of South Tyneside in Tyne and Wear
Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Loc ...
was formed in 1974. It was subsequently used by South Tyneside Council as a local hub for housing advice and council tax queries.[
A statue of Sir Charles Palmer, which had been designed by ]Albert Toft
Albert Toft (3 June 1862 – 18 December 1949) was a British sculptor.
Toft's career was dominated by public commemorative commissions in bronze, mostly single statues of military or royal figures. The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in ...
and originally unveiled by Lady Gertrude Palmer at Jarrow Riverside Park in 1903, was removed from the park, as part of works intended to facilitate the construction of the Second Tyne Tunnel, in April 2007; it was then refurbished and re-erected in a position facing the town hall in June 2007. The council approved a programme of improvement works, which included the re-wiring and damp-proofing of the building, in March 2020.
References
{{reflist
Government buildings completed in 1904
City and town halls in Tyne and Wear
Jarrow
Grade II listed buildings in Tyne and Wear