Lytham St Annes Town Hall is a municipal building on the South Promenade in

Lytham St Annes Lytham St Annes () is a seaside town in the Borough of Fylde in Lancashire, England. It is on the The Fylde, Fylde coast, directly south of Blackpool on the Ribble Estuary. The population at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 42,954 ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England. The structure, which is used as the headquarters of Fylde Borough Council, is a locally listed building.

History

The building was originally commissioned by William John Porritt through his development business, the

St Anne's on the Sea Land and Building Company St. Anne's on the Sea Land and Building Company was formed in 1874 and played an integral part in the development of the new town of St.Anne's on the Sea from 1875. The company had its roots in the Rossendale area and the most significant invest ...

, for use as the "Southdown Hydro Hotel": it has been described by the Lytham St Annes Civic Society as "one of the best examples of a Porritt development". It was designed in the Victorian style, built in stone quarried in East Lancashire and was completed in 1898. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto the South Promenade; the third bay from the left featured a porch with a round headed entrance flanked by pairs of

colonette A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ce ...

s supporting a moulded

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

. The building was fenestrated, on the lower two floors of the outer bays, by square headed bay

window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent materia ...

s, on the lower two floors of the second and fourth bays, by

canted Cant, CANT, canting, or canted may refer to: Language * Cant (language), a secret language * Beurla Reagaird, a language of the Scottish Highland Travellers * Scottish Cant, a language of the Scottish Lowland Travellers * Shelta or the Cant, a lan ...

bay windows and, on the second floor, by two-light pedimented

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s. The bays were all gabled, with the outer bays featuring large gables than the inner bays. The interior decoration included Minton tiles on the walls and fine stained glass windows. The proprietor, a Mrs Spyree, claimed that the building enjoyed "the best situation facing pier and sea." In 1922, St Anne's-on-the-Sea Urban District Council merged with Lytham Urban District Council to form Lytham St Annes Metropolitan Borough. Lytham Urban District Council did not have a permanent headquarters at that time and St Anne's Public Offices were not large enough to accommodate the enlarged authority, so the new civic leaders decided to acquire the Southdown Hydro Hotel which was conveniently located just to the rear of the old public offices. The former hotel was converted and brought into use as "a modern and well-equipped town hall" in 1925. Internally, the principal new room created was the council chamber. In June 1925, John Booth of the local grocery business,

Booths Booths is a chain of high-end supermarkets in Northern England. Most of its branches are in Lancashire, but there are also branches in Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire. It has been described as the "Wait ...

, donated a painting by the artist,

Richard Ansdell Richard Ansdell (11 May 1815 – 20 April 1885) was a British painter of animals and genre scenes. Life Ansdell was born in Liverpool (then in Lancashire), the son of Thomas Griffiths Ansdell, a freeman who worked at the port, and Anne Jacks ...

, depicting a young girl with a sheepdog and a herd of sheep. It was given to the council on condition that it be hung in the council chamber. This painting entitled "the Herd Lassie" was the start of the Lytham St Annes Art Collection which was assembled following further donations by other members of the Booth family, by the former mayor, Alderman James Herbert Dawson, and by other benefactors. The building went on to become the local seat of government for the enlarged Fylde District Council in 1974.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1898 Lytham St Annes City and town halls in Lancashire