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

Tenterden Tenterden is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It stands on the edge of the remnant forest the Weald, overlooking the valley of the River Rother. It was a member of the Cinque Ports Confederation. Its riverside today is not ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Tenterden 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

Tilden, List of Mayors Tenterden England (1)

The first municipal building in the town 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 ...

court hall which was burnt down by an inmate who had been incarcerated in the debtors' cells in March 1661. The borough council subsequently met in public houses until, in the late 18th century, the civic leaders decided to commission a dedicated building. The site they selected was owned by John Samson, who also owned the Woolpack Inn. After the council had acquired a long lease on the right-hand section of the site, construction started in 1790. The new building was designed in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, built in brick with a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

finish at a cost of £1,000 and was completed in 1792. The design involved a main frontage with five bays facing onto the High Street; the right-hand section, which was symmetrical, featured a doorway flanked 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 and by round headed openings with a prominent

Venetian window A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian a ...

on the first floor. The left-hand section featured a carriageway on the left and a three-part

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 right, while the first floor was fenestrated by a single sash window on the left and by a three-part sash window on the right. Internally, the rooms occupied by the council, which were in the right-hand section, were the grand jury room on the ground floor and the assembly hall on the first floor. The roof of the building was repaired after it was badly damaged in a fire in September 1879, a

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

supported by four columns was installed in May 1912 and the freehold in the property was acquired in February 1922. The council secured ownership of the left-hand section of the building as well in October 1925, so allowing a mayor's parlour to be established on the first floor. The building was also extended to the north to create a town clerk's office in 1936 and it was refurbished, with the Venetian window being replaced, in 1973. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the borough council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Ashford Borough Council Ashford may refer to: Places Australia *Ashford, New South Wales *Ashford, South Australia *Electoral district of Ashford, South Australia Ireland *Ashford, County Wicklow *Ashford Castle, County Galway United Kingdom *Ashford, Kent, a town **B ...

was formed in 1974. It subsequently became the meeting place of Tenterden Town Council as well as an approved venue for weddings and civil partnership ceremonies. In January 2021, the town council announced plans to carry out a comprehensive restoration of the building, which would include the replacement of the 1930s extension, to a design by local architects, Theis & Khan, at a proposed cost of £1.75 million. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by

Lance Calkin George Lance Calkin (22 June 1859 – 10 October 1936) was a British painter. Calkin was the second child in a family of seven siblings. He was born in London, to Emily and George Calkin, a musician and composer. He was educated in a private sch ...

of the

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 ...

, Colonel James Palmer, and a portrait by

William Hoare William Hoare of Bath (c. 1707 – 12 December 1792) was a British portraitist, painter and printmaker. From c. 1740 to 1759, he was the leading Oil painting, oil portraitist at Bath, Somerset, until Thomas Gainsborough arrived in the town. ...

of the master of Sunbury School, Samuel Curteis.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1792 Grade II listed buildings in Kent Tenterden City and town halls in Kent