Morpeth Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place, Morpeth, Northumberland, England. The structure, which was the meeting place of Morpeth 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

The building was commissioned in the early 18th century by the

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 ...

, the 3rd Earl of Carlisle. It was designed by John Vanbrugh 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 rusticated ashlar stone and was completed in 1714. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the Market Place with the end bays projected forward as towers with

voussoir A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault. Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...

s and open

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

s in the top stage. The central section of three bays featured three arched openings containing

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" ...

grills on the ground floor; there were segmental headed sash windows on the first floor and an entablature, a cornice and a pediment above with a

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 ...

in the tympanum. Internally, the principal rooms were the butter market and, behind it, the corn exchange on the ground floor, and the assembly hall on the first floor. In September 1758, an army sergeant was killed and two other soldiers badly injured when 3,000 ammunition cartridges exploded in an accident in the town hall. In the early 19th century theatrical events took place in the town hall with Macbeth being performed there. After significant population growth, largely associated with Morpeth's status as a market town, the area became 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 ...

, with the town hall as its headquarters, in 1835. The town hall was badly damaged in a fire in 1869 and the façade was subsequently restored, so as to create an exact reproduction of the original, and the structure behind it completely rebuilt; this was all at the expense of the 8th Earl of Carlisle, under the supervision of the local architect, Robert James Johnson. In February 1909, the suffragette and British

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

politician, Alison Garland addressed a meeting in the town hall during which she spoke about votes for women as well as broader political issues. In 1917, the industrialist Lord Joicey bought the town hall from the 11th Earl of Carlisle and presented it to the town, refusing to accept re-imbursement despite a fund raising campaign organised by civic officials. The building then remained the headquarters of the borough council until it moved to new offices at No. 36 Bridge Street which were opened by the mayor, Richard Elliott, on 5 May 1939. The town hall remained the main venue for civic events in the town and later accommodated the offices of Morpeth Town Council as well as the local registrar's office: it also became an approved venue for weddings and civil partnership ceremonies. An extensive programme of restoration works costing £1.1 million was commissioned by the Greater Morpeth Development Trust, carried out to a design by Napper Architects and was completed in 2009. The works involved improved access to the butter market and the restoration of the grand staircase. A bust, designed by Helen Ridehalgh, depicting the former Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, Vice-Admiral

Lord Collingwood Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood (26 September 1748 – 7 March 1810) was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic Wars, and frequently as ...

, was installed in the butter market in March 2013. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by

Thomas Lawrence Sir Thomas Lawrence (13 April 1769 – 7 January 1830) was an English portrait painter and the fourth president of the Royal Academy. A child prodigy, he was born in Bristol and began drawing in Devizes, where his father was an innkeeper at ...

of the former Lord Privy Seal, the 6th Earl of Carlisle, as well as portraits by

Thomas Bowman Garvie Thomas Bowman Garvie (6 February 1859 – 5 January 1944) was a Northumbrian artist whose portraits include Thomas Burt, Lord Percy, Lord Armstrong, George B Bainbridge, Fred B Fenwick and Sir William and Lady Grey. He was a prolific painter of ...

of Alderman George Barron Grey and of Alderman George Young. Other items of interest displayed in the mayor's parlour include a strong box known as the "town hutch" commissioned by Lord Dacre and containing documents dating back to 1513, a ceremonial mace made in 1604 and several cannonballs used in the siege of Morpeth in January 1644 during the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

History

References

Further reading