Middlewich Town Hall, also known as Victoria Buildings, is a municipal structure in Lewin Street, Middlewich,

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. The building, which was originally commissioned as a technical school and public library, is now the meeting place of

Middlewich Town Council Middlewich Town Council is the town council for the Cheshire Market Town of Middlewich and was established in 1974 as a successor council to the Middlewich Urban District Council. The town council meets at Middlewich Town Hall. References ...

History

The first municipal building in the town was a town hall on the Bull Ring which was designed in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

and completed in 1844. The building, which was a gift from the local

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

, James France of

Bostock Hall Bostock Hall is a country house to the northeast of Winsford, Cheshire, England. A former Georgian house, it was rebuilt in 1775 for Edward Tomkinson. It is thought that the architect was Samuel Wyatt. Alterations and additions were made to ...

, accommodated a butter market on the ground floor and an assembly room on the first floor. It was used for

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...

hearings once a month and also incorporated facilities for the local Literary and Scientific Institute as well as a public library. Following significant population growth, largely due to the status of Middlewich as a market town, the area became an

urban district Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (urban subdivision) * Neighbourhood Specific subdivisions in some countries: * Urban districts of Denmark * Urban districts of Germany * Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...

with the town hall as its headquarters in 1894. Meanwhile, in 1897, the new council decided to commission a new technical school and public library for the town as part of celebrations for the

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...

. The site selected, which was occupied by a private residence known as Naylor House, was donated to the council by the industrialist and

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 of ...

Sir John Brunner The Brunner Baronetcy, of Druids Cross in the parish of Little Woolton in the County Palatine of Lancaster; of Winnington Old Hall in the parish of Winnington in the County Palatine of Chester; and of Ennismore Gardens in the parish of St Marga ...

. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Councillor Edward Howard Moss of Cheshire County Council on 2 October 1897. It was designed in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

, built with

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 ...

facings and officially opened by the

Earl of Crewe Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Scandinavian form '' jarl'', and meant "chieftain", particula ...

in November 1898. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto Lewin Street; the third bay from the left featured a three-stage tower with a round headed doorway with a keystone in the first stage, a semi-circular

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

and a

cross-window A cross-window is a window whose lights are defined by a mullion and a transom, forming a cross.Curl, James Stevens (2006). ''Oxford Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture'', 2nd ed., OUP, Oxford and New York, p. 214. . The Late ...

in the second stage and section with a

Diocletian window Diocletian windows, also called thermal windows, are large semicircular windows characteristic of the enormous public baths (''thermae'') of Ancient Rome. They have been revived on a limited basis by some classical revivalist architects in more m ...

and an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...

surmounted by a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

making up the third stage. The first bay, which was gabled, featured a round headed window on the ground floor and a cross-window on the first floor while the other bays were fenestrated by cross-windows. Terracotta panels were installed on the front of the building to illustrate the town's industrial history and there was a central

lantern A lantern is an often portable source of lighting, typically featuring a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle or a wick in oil, and often a battery-powered light in modern timesto make it easier to carry and h ...

at roof level. Internally, the principal rooms were the classrooms together with a library and a reading room. By the mid-20th century the old town hall had become dilapidated and the council decided to relocate to the building in Lewin Street, by then known as the Victoria Buildings. The old town hall was subsequently demolished and the area redeveloped. The Victoria Buildings ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Congleton Borough Council Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The town is by the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 26,482. Top ...

was formed in 1974 and, instead the Victoria Buildings, as Middlewich Town Hall, became the meeting place of

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1898 City and town halls in Cheshire Middlewich