Sheringham Town Hall, formerly known as Sheringham Council Offices, is a former municipal building in Church Street,

Sheringham Sheringham (; population 7,367) is an English seaside town within the county of Norfolk, United Kingdom.Ordnance Survey (2002). ''OS Explorer Map 252 - Norfolk Coast East''. . The motto of the town, granted in 1953 to the Sheringham Urban Distr ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, England. The structure served as the headquarters of Sheringham Urban District Council and then as the offices and meeting place of Sheringham Town Council until it closed in August 2019.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the fishing industry, Lower Sheringham 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 1901. In 1911, the new council decided to commission purpose-built council offices: the site they selected was vacant land at the junction of Church Street and Saint Peter's Road. The new building was designed by the local architects, Stanley Simons & Co., in the Edwardian style, built in red brick with stone dressings and was completed in 1912. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage at the junction of Church Street and Saint Peter's Road; the central bay featured a recessed 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 ...

on the ground floor and a prominent

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 ...

on the first floor surmounted by a short clock tower with a

ogee An ogee ( ) is the name given to objects, elements, and curves—often seen in architecture and building trades—that have been variously described as serpentine-, extended S-, or sigmoid-shaped. Ogees consist of a "double curve", the combinatio ...

-shaped roof. The central bay was flanked by curved sections which were fenestrated by three-part round headed windows separated by

colonette A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ce ...

s on the ground floor and three part square-headed windows separated by

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 on the first floor. The side facades featured sections of four-part round headed windows which were also separated by colonettes. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber on the first floor. At the end of 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 service of thanksgiving was held outside the town hall to celebrate the armistice: almost the whole town attended the service. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

North Norfolk District Council North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' i ...

was formed with its offices in

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local government authorities are Nor ...

in 1974. It then served as the offices and meeting place of Sheringham Town Council and was the venue for the signing of a twinning agreement with the town of

Otterndorf Otterndorf () is a town on the coast of the North Sea in the federal state of Lower Saxony, Germany, and is part of the collective municipality (''Samtgemeinde'') of Land Hadeln. The town, located in the administrative district (''Landkreis'') of ...

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

in Germany in 1998. After the town council relocated to Sheringham Community Centre in Holway Road in August 2019, the building was mothballed. The contents of the town hall were auctioned in January 2021 and a planning application to convert the building for residential use was submitted to North Norfolk District Council in July 2021.

References

{{Reflist Government buildings completed in 1912 City and town halls in Norfolk Sheringham