Ossett Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place,

Ossett Ossett is a market town in the City of Wakefield metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated between Dewsbury, Horbury and Wakefield. At the 2011 Census, the population was ...

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 town hall, which was the headquarters of Ossett Borough Council until 1974, 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

After significant population growth in the second half of the 19th century, particularly associated with

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

, 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 ...

in 1890 and civic leaders, who had been operating out of rented premises in New Street, decided to procure a dedicated town hall for the area. The site they initially selected at the corner of Bank Street and Illingworth Street was found to be unsuitable and instead they decided to make use of a site in the Market Place which had been occupied by the local

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

before it moved to Park House, off Storrs Hill Road. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the mayor, Alderman John Hampshire Nettleton, on 27 February 1906. It was designed by Walter Hanstock & Son of

Batley Batley is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England. Batley lies south-west of Leeds, north-west of Wakefield and Dewsbury, south-east of Bradford and north-east of Huddersfield. Batley is part of the ...

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 at a cost of £22,000, which was financed by

public subscription Subscription refers to the process of investors signing up and committing to invest in a financial instrument, before the actual closing of the purchase. The term comes from the Latin word ''subscribere''. Historical Praenumeration An early form ...

, and officially opened by the mayor, Councillor John Thomas Marsden, on 2 June 1908. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with twelve bays facing onto the Market Place with the end three bays at each end slightly projected forward and topped with ornately carved pediments containing

oculi An oculus (; ) is a circular opening in the center of a dome or in a wall. Originating in antiquity, it is a feature of Byzantine and Neoclassical architecture. It is also known as an '' œil-de-boeuf'' from the French, or simply a "bull's- ...

; the central section of two bays, which also slightly projected forward, featured a round headed doorway flanked by

caryatid A caryatid ( or or ; grc, Καρυᾶτις, pl. ) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term ''karyatides'' literally means "ma ...

s supporting

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

carrying a stone balcony; there were round headed windows on the first floor flanked by

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s with a

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 pedimen ...

above containing a

roundel A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of differ ...

depicting local industries and a two-stage

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

with

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

and

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 ...

at roof level. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the public hall, which featured a large gallery.

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...

and Queen Mary visited Ossett Market Place and talked to civic leaders outside the town hall in July 1912 and the young men of Ossett were called up at the town hall and

billet A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alth ...

ed there 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 ...

. A war memorial in the form of a

soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...

with a

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...

was installed outside the town hall in 1920. The professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

and

billiards Cue sports are a wide variety of games of skill played with a cue, which is used to strike billiard balls and thereby cause them to move around a cloth-covered table bounded by elastic bumpers known as . There are three major subdivisions of ...

player,

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game i ...

, took part in a series of exhibition matches at the town hall in December 1948 to raise funds for local charities. An organ, which had originally been designed and manufactured by

John Compton Sir John George Melvin Compton, (29 April 1925 – 7 September 2007) was a Saint Lucian politician who became the first Prime Minister upon independence in February 1979. Having led Saint Lucia under British rule from 1964 to 1979, Compton ser ...

for the Rialto Cinema in

Bebington Bebington () is a town and unparished area within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, in Merseyside, England. Historically part of Cheshire, it lies south of Liverpool, close to the River Mersey on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula. Ne ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...

in 1933, was recovered from the cinema on its closure and installed in the public hall in January 1970. The opening concert was broadcast on the programme, ''

The Organist Entertains ''The Organist Entertains'' was a long-running music programme broadcast on BBC Radio 2. The 30 minute programme focused on the organ in its many guises, and played recordings and live broadcasts of theatre organs, pipe organs and electroni ...

'', on

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

. The building served as the headquarters of Ossett Borough Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Wakefield District Council Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, also known as Wakefield Council, is the local authority of the City of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council and provides a full range of local government services in ...

was formed in 1974. A major programme of refurbishment works costing £2 million commenced at the town hall in March 2020.

References

{{City and town halls in West Yorkshire Government buildings completed in 1908 City and town halls in West Yorkshire Ossett Grade II listed buildings in West Yorkshire

History

See also

References