Rugeley Town Hall was a municipal building in the Market Square in

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nort ...

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation Staffs.) is a landlocked county in the West Midlands region of England. It borders Cheshire to the northwest, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, Warwickshire to the southeast, the West Midlands Cou ...

, England. The building, which was the headquarters of Rugeley Urban District Council, was demolished in 1978.

History

The first municipal building in the town was a town hall which stood in the centre of the Market Square and was completed in around 1790. It was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor and a

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 ...

on the roof. The building, which was extended to the north in the

Tudor style Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

in 1850, was the venue for the inquest into the death of John Parsons Cook who was murdered by Dr William Palmer in 1855. In the early 1870s the magistrates complained about the "disgraceful and dangerous state of the building" which had become very dilapidated. 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 ...

Thomas Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield Thomas George Anson, 2nd Earl of Lichfield (15 August 1825 – 7 January 1892), known as Viscount Anson from 1831 to 1854, was a British politician from the Anson family. Early life Lichfield was the eldest of four sons and four daughters born t ...

, whose seat was at

Shugborough Hall Shugborough Hall is a stately home near Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England. The hall is situated on the edge of Cannock Chase, about east of Stafford and from Rugeley. The estate was owned by the Bishops of Lichfield until the dissolutio ...

, offered to provide a site for a new building. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the Earl of Lichfield on 26 June 1878. It was designed by William Tadman-Foulkes 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 in red brick with stone dressings and was completed in 1879. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the Market Square; the central bay featured a

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 an arched doorway on the ground floor and a tall section with louvres and clock faces all surmounted by a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...

; on the right, the building curved round into Anson Street to form a single-storey section which was fenestrated by arched windows and surmounted by a parapet. Beyond that there was a two-storey-section which was fenestrated by arched windows and featured gabled end-bays, and, at the north end, there was a section which was formed by the reconstruction of the mid-19th century extension to the original town hall. Internally, the principal rooms were the market hall on the ground floor and the assembly rooms and municipal offices on the first floor. Following significant population growth, largely associated with the mining industry, 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. One of the first acts of the new council was to implement a public water supply and a plaque was subsequently placed on the wall of the town hall to commemorate this innovation which was completed in 1895. A war memorial, in the form of an

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by Anc ...

, which was intended to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in 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 ...

, was unveiled by the

Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire This is a list of people who have served as lord lieutenant for Staffordshire. Since 1828, all lord lieutenants have also been custos rotulorum of Staffordshire. Lord Lieutenants of Staffordshire *Henry Stafford, 1st Baron Stafford 1559 *George ...

William Legge, 6th Earl of Dartmouth William Heneage Legge, 6th Earl of Dartmouth, (6 May 1851 – 11 March 1936), styled Viscount Lewisham between 1853 and 1891, was a British peer and Conservative politician. He served as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household between 1885 and 1886 ...

, on the Anson Street side of the building on 23 January 1921. 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 town was protected the

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting wi ...

and, once fully-raised and efficient, two companies of the 14th (Stafford) Battalion Staffordshire Home Guard marched past a saluting base outside the town hall. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be local seat of government when the enlarged

Cannock Chase District Council Cannock () is a town in the Cannock Chase district in the county of Staffordshire, England. It had a population of 29,018. Cannock is not far from the nearby towns of Walsall, Burntwood, Stafford and Telford. The cities of Lichfield and Wolverh ...

was formed in 1974. Despite the objections of a local protest group, the new council instructed the demolition of the building in 1978.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1879 City and town halls in Staffordshire Rugeley