Thame Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street,

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the county border wi ...

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, England. The town hall, which is the meeting place of Thame 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

A moot hall, which was designed with arcading on the ground floor to allow markets to be held, was erected in the Middle Row (between the Buttermarket to the north and the Cornmarket to the south) in the High Street in 1509. After the moot hall fell into a state of disrepair, a second market hall, which was also arcaded and 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 ...

, was commissioned by the

James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon (16 June 1653 – 22 May 1699), styled Hon. James Bertie until 1657 and known as the 5th Baron Norreys from 1657 until 1682, was an English nobleman. Early life and relations Bertie was the eldest son of Montag ...

in 1684. In the late 1850s, following complaints that the 17th century market hall was inadequate for large public meetings, civic leaders decided to acquire the old building from

Montagu Bertie, 6th Earl of Abingdon Montagu Bertie, 6th Earl of Abingdon (19 June 1808 – 8 February 1884) was a British peer and politician. He was styled Lord Norreys from birth until acceding in 1854. Background Born at Dover Street, he was the eldest son of Montagu Bertie, ...

, to demolish it and to erect a new town hall, 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 ...

, on the same site as part of the town's celebrations for the

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a Thanksgiving Service at Westminster Abbey, and a banquet to which ...

. The old market hall clock, which had originally been made for Rycote chapel in 1577, was removed from the clock tower before it was demolished and donated to St Catherine's Church at Towersey. The new building was designed by

Henry James Tollit Henry James Tollit (1835–1904) was an English architect who practised in Oxford. Tollit trained under William Wilkinson (1819–1901) and was in practice by 1870. He worked in partnership with Edwin Dolby in 1877–78. Tollit was also the cou ...

in the Jacobethan style, built by a local contractor, John Wells, and completed in 1887. It was constructed from red bricks which had been baked at the Christmas Hill Brickworks in

Moreton Moreton may refer to: People Given name * Moreton John Wheatley (1837–1916), British Army officer and Bailiff of the Royal Parks Surname * Alice Bertha Moreton (1901–1977), English sculptor, draughtsman and artist * Andrew Moreton, a p ...

and was officially opened by a Mrs Reynolds on 2 April 1888. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing northwest along the High Street; the central bay featured an segmental headed doorway 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 ...

columns supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

; there was a 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 ...

window on the first floor, a four-light arched mullion window flanked by

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 ...

s on the second floor and a clock tower with a small

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 ...

at roof level. The principal room was the council chamber on the first floor which subsequently became known as the Upper Chamber. A fire took place in the Upper Chamber in 1906 and some alterations to the internal layout of the building were subsequently completed. The town hall was the headquarters of Thame Urban District Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when

South Oxfordshire District Council South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

was formed in 1974. It subsequently became the home of Thame Town Council. The building featured extensively from the late 1990s in the

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

television series, ''

Midsomer Murders ''Midsomer Murders'' is a British crime drama television series, adapted by Anthony Horowitz and Douglas Watkinson from the novels in the '' Chief Inspector Barnaby'' book series (created by Caroline Graham), and broadcast on two channels of I ...

'', as the fictional Causton Town Hall.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1887 City and town halls in Oxfordshire Grade II listed buildings in Oxfordshire Thame