The Municipal Buildings are based on the north side of High East Street in

Dorchester, Dorset Dorchester ( ) is the county town of Dorset, England. It is situated between Poole and Bridport on the A35 trunk route. A historic market town, Dorchester is on the banks of the River Frome to the south of the Dorset Downs and north of the ...

, England. The structure, which was the headquarters of Dorchester 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 first town hall in Dorchester, which was described as a "spacious and handsome edifice", was completed in 1791. It was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. After Dorchester 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 ...

in 1835, civic leaders decided to replace the old town hall with a new structure. The new building was designed by

Benjamin Ferrey Benjamin Ferrey FSA FRIBA (1 April 1810–22 August 1880) was an English architect who worked mostly in the Gothic Revival. Family Benjamin Ferrey was the youngest son of Benjamin Ferrey Snr (1779–1847), a draper who became Mayor of Christc ...

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 ...

, built by Samuel Slade in brown

Broadmayne Broadmayne is a village in the English county of Dorset. It lies two miles south-east of the county town Dorchester. The A352 main road between Dorchester (from Sherborne) and Wareham passes through the village. In the 2001 Census the popula ...

bricks with stone dressings and was completed in 1848. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto High East Street; the central bay featured a doorway with a

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...

flanked by

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (Greek: Κορινθιακός ρυθμός, Latin: ''Ordo Corinthius'') is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order ...

columns supporting a triangular

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin ''labia'', lip), drip mould or dripstone, is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a ''pediment''. This mouldin ...

bearing the borough

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central ele ...

; there were arched openings in the other bays on the ground floor and there were five

mullion window 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 ...

s on the first floor. The roofline on the main frontage was

crenelated A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interv ...

. The North Square elevation featured a prominent two-storey

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 ...

which was also crenelated. A clock

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 ...

with a spire was attached at the southwest corner in 1864, containing a chiming clock by J. Moore & Sons of Clerkenwell. Internally, a

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

was established on the ground floor while a town hall and a council chamber were accommodated on the first floor. Pevsner described the building as the "visual climax" to views along the High Streets. After a fall in price of English corn as a result of cheap imports in the 1870s, the openings on the ground floor were filled in with windows and the former corn exchange was subsequently used as an events venue: the novelist,

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

, attended a rehearsal of his play, ''The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse'', which was performed by

the Hardy Players The Hardy Players (1908–1928) was an amateur theatrical company, based in Dorchester, Dorset. The novelist Thomas Hardy adapted his novels for live performance in collaboration with the group. In some cases he made major changes to the story, su ...

, there in summer 1923. The municipal buildings remained the headquarters of Dorchester Borough Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

West Dorset District Council West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

was established at council offices in High West Street in 1974. The roof of the municipal buildings complex was completely replaced in spring 2021. In March 2021 the Dorchester Town Council announced proposals for further improvement works including new offices for town council officers at the rear of the municipal buildings: this would enable officers to relocate from their current premises at 19 North Square. Following the completion of the works, which were estimated to cost £2 million, the building would re-open under the management of Dorchester Arts, an organisation supported by

Arts Council England Arts Council England is an arm's length non-departmental public body of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is also a registered charity. It was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three s ...

, in autumn 2021.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1848 City and town halls in Dorset Buildings and structures in Dorchester, Dorset Grade II* listed buildings in Dorset Corn exchanges in England

History

See also

References