Walsall Town Hall is located at Leicester Street in Walsall,

West Midlands West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

, England. The building, which opened in 1903, is used for a variety of functions including wedding receptions and concerts. It was designated a grade II listed building in 1986.

History

The town hall's Baroque style design is by the architect James Glen Sivewright Gibson. It has a facade of sandstone

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

and adjoins

Walsall Council House Walsall Council House is a municipal building in Lichfield Street in Walsall, West Midlands, England. It is a Grade II listed building. History The St. John's Guildhall in the High Street, which had been built in 1416, was appropriated by the ...

. The design for the entrance includes a round archway with three Tuscan order columns, an

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

and a tympanum above. The building opened in 1903. The

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, which commemorates the

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...

, was made by the local firm of Nicholson & Lord and installed in 1908. It was designed with 98 stops, five keyboards and 3,300 pipes. The organist, Harold Britton, recorded a concert entitled "Organ Extravaganza" on the ASV label on the organ in 1991. An episode from series 20 of the BBC programme '' Antiques Roadshow'' was filmed in the hall in November 1997.

Rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

bands that performed at the Walsall Town Hall in the 1960s and 1970s include Slade, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. The heavy metal band, Jameson Raid, performed in the hall in 1980 and the rock band Reverend and The Makers performed there in 2012. In the theatre are a matched pair of pictures by

Frank O. Salisbury Francis Owen Salisbury (18 December 1874 – 31 August 1962) was an English artist who specialised in portraits, large canvases of historical and ceremonial events, stained glass and book illustration. In his heyday he made a fortune on both si ...

. They were commissioned by the former local member of parliament,

Joseph Leckie Joseph Alexander Leckie (24 May 1866 – 9 August 1938) was a British Liberal, later Liberal National politician and leather manufacturer. Education and business life Leckie was born in Govan in Glasgow, the son of John and Isabella Leckie. He w ...

, "to commemorate the never to be forgotten valour of the South Staffordshire Regiments in the Great War 1914 - 1918" and completed in 1920. One shows "the First South Staffordshires attacking the Hohenzollern Redoubt", the other "the 5th South Staffords storming the St. Quentin Canal at Bellingtise Sept 29th 1918". Also inside the building are a memorial to organist and composer Charles Swinnerton Heap, sculpted by Albert Toft, and a 2009 memorial plaque to Walsall's three recipients of the Victoria Cross,

John Henry Carless John Henry Carless (11 November 1896 – 17 November 1917) was a Great Britain, British recipient of the Victoria Cross during the World War I, First World War. Early life Carless was born in 1896 to John Thomas Carless, an iron foundry wor ...

, James Thompson and

Charles George Bonner Charles George Bonner (29 December 1884 – 7 February 1951) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth forces. ...

References

External links

Web page
{{Authority control Grade II listed buildings in the West Midlands (county) Music venues in the West Midlands (county) Government buildings completed in 1903 Buildings and structures in Walsall Works by James Glen Sivewright Gibson City and town halls in the West Midlands (county)