Slaithwaite Town Hall, also known as Empire House is a former municipal building in Lewisham Road in the town of

Slaithwaite Slaithwaite , locally ''Slawit'' (Old Norse: Timber-fell clearing), is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it lies in the Colne Valley, lying acr ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England. The building, which served as the offices of Colne Valley Urban District Council, is now a business centre.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the woollen industry, a local board of health was established in the Slaithwaite area in 1862. In the late 1880s, the local board decided to commission purpose-built public offices for the area: the site they chose was open land at the junction of Station Road and Lewisham Road. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the proprietor of the Slaithwaite Spinning Company, William Varley, on 19 May 1892. It was designed by a local architect, James B. Eagland, in the neoclassical style, built in

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

brick and was completed later that year. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the Lewisham Road; the second bay from the left, which projected forward, was fenestrated by a segmental window on the ground floor and a

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 ...

on the first floor and was surmounted by a Dutch gable with a projecting flagpole. The other bays were fenestrated by segmental windows on the ground floor, and by

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

s with

window cill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s and alternating triangular and segmental pediments on the first floor. Internally, the principal room was the board room for the local board. The local board was replaced by Slaithwaite Urban District Council, with its headquarters in the former public offices, in 1894. The building acted as the venue for parliamentary election results and it was there that the Reverend

Charles Leach Charles Leach (1 March 1847 – 24 November 1919) was a Congregationalist Minister and Liberal Party politician in the United Kingdom. He is notable as the only Member of Parliament to be deprived of his seat after being declared of unsound mind ...

was duly elected

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 ...

for

Colne Valley The Colne Valley is a steep sided valley on the east flank of the Pennine Hills in the English county of West Yorkshire. It takes its name from the River Colne which rises above the town of Marsden and flows eastward towards Huddersfield. ...

at the

January 1910 general election The January 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 15 January to 10 February 1910. The government called the election in the midst of a constitutional crisis caused by the rejection of the People's Budget by the Conservative-dominat ...

. Leach went on to serve as a hospital visitor during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and his seat was declared vacant under the Lunacy (Vacating of Seats) Act in August 1916, when he became the only member of parliament ever to be disqualified under that Act. A war memorial, in the form of a stone cross on a plinth, which was intended to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who died in the

, was erected to the immediate west of the town hall in the 1920s. An underground air raid shelter was established in the grounds during 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 opposin ...

. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of Colne Valley Urban District Council after it was formed in 1937, but it ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Kirklees Council Kirklees Council is the local authority providing most local government services for the borough of Kirklees in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council and one of five constituent councils of the West Yorkshire Combined Aut ...

was formed in 1974. The building went on to become the offices of a fashion exhibition organiser and then, after a change of ownership in October 2019 and a programme of refurbishment works costing £450,000, it re-opened as a business centre known as Empire House in July 2021.

References

{{City and town halls in West Yorkshire Government buildings completed in 1892 City and town halls in West Yorkshire Colne Valley