Sandbach Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street in

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is the name of a historic market town and a civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach itself as the largest, Elworth, Ettiley Heath a ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Sandbach Town 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

Sandbach Town Council chairmen and clerks (1974-2011)

The first town hall in Sandbach was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

structure located in the Market Square. On the High Street side, it was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, while on the Market Square side it had a

village lock-up A village lock-up is a historic building once used for the temporary detention of people in England and Wales, mostly where official prisons or criminal courts were beyond easy walking distance. Lockups were often used for the confinement of dru ...

at one end and shops at the other end; there was an assembly hall on the first floor. The lawyer and author,

Thomas Hughes Thomas Hughes (20 October 182222 March 1896) was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author. He is most famous for his novel ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had attended. ...

, served as a judge at county court hearings in the building. The town hall was re-built on the same site in 1888; it was arranged with shops and offices on the ground floor and an assembly hall on the first floor but only survived three years before being demolished in 1891. The site for the current town hall, further to the northwest along the High Street, was donated 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 ...

, Lord Crewe: it had been occupied by a barber's shop and a private house. The foundation stone for the new building was laid on 2 July 1889. It was designed by

Thomas Bower Thomas Bower (1838–1919) was an English architect and surveyor based in Nantwich, Cheshire. He worked in partnership with Ernest H. Edleston at the Nantwich firm Bower & Edleston, which he founded in 1854.Pevsner & Hubbard, p. 288 He is pa ...

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 John Stringer in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £5,000 and was officially opened by Lord Crewe on 28 October 1890. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto the High Street; the central section of four bays featured arches on the ground floor and three-light

mullion 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 ...

ed windows on the first floor. The right hand bay featured a four-stage tower with an arch on the ground floor, a panel with the Crewe family

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 ...

flanked by statues on the first floor, a two-light mullioned window on the second floor, an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

al shaped stage with a clock on the third floor and a

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

al roof with 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 ...

above. The statues, which were paid for by Lord Crewe, depicted, on the left, the

Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or are ...

, Sir Ranulph Crewe, and, on the right, the early Norman lord of the manor, Bigot de Loges, who was referred to in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. The left hand bay, which was slightly set back, featured mullioned and transomed windows on the ground and first floors with a gable above. Internally, the principal room was the ballroom. After significant population growth, largely associated with Sandbach's status as a market town, 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 ...

in 1894. Although the council meetings took place in the town hall, the town clerk was based in offices at 3 Crewe Road in Sandbach. Rallies were held at the town hall to identify potential recruits for the 15th and 16th (Service) Battalions of the

Cheshire Regiment The Cheshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Prince of Wales' Division. The 22nd Regiment of Foot was raised by the Duke of Norfolk in 1689 and was able to boast an independent existence of over 300 years. T ...

throughout 1915 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 concerts and other events were held to raise funds for the

Wings for Victory Week Wings for Victory Weeks were British National savings campaigns during the Second World War, with the aim of Royal Air Force aircraft being sponsored by a civil community. The British Army equivalent was Salute the Soldier Week and the Royal Navy ...

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 hall continued to be used as an events venue after the war and performers included the

soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...

and

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

singer, Jimmy Powell, in April 1963. The town hall ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Congleton Borough Council Congleton is a town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. The town is by the River Dane, south of Manchester and north of Stoke on Trent. At the 2011 Census, it had a population of 26,482. Top ...

was formed at Westfields in Middlewich Road in Sandbach in 1974. Sandbach Town Council took over the management of the building in 2012, and, following the completion of an extensive programme of refurbishment works which included improvements to the main frontage, the town hall was officially re-opened by the mayor, Councillor Mike Benson, on 19 February 2014. The building then became the location of the offices of the town council as well as its main meeting place. The

Mercian Regiment The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire, Worcesters and Foresters, and Staffords) is an infantry regiment of the British Army, which is recruited from five of the counties that formed the ancient kingdom of Mercia. Known as 'The Heart of England's Infant ...

received the Freedom of Sandbach at the town hall on 29 June 2014 and the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

...

History

See also

References