Waterloo Town Hall, also known as Crosby Town Hall (from 1937 to 1974), is a municipal building in Great George's Road in

Waterloo, Merseyside Waterloo is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. Along with Seaforth, Merseyside, Seaforth the two localities make up the Church (Sefton ward), Sefton Ward of Church. The area is bordered by Crosby, Merseyside, Cr ...

, England. The building, which was the headquarters of Waterloo Urban District Council from 1863 to 1937 and then of Crosby Borough Council from 1937 to 1974, is a Grade II listed building.

History

In anticipation of the formation of the new urban district of Waterloo with Seaforth, which was formed out of

Litherland Litherland is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside. It was an urban district, which included Seaforth and Ford. It neighbours Waterloo to the north, Seaforth to the west, and Bootle to the south and is approximately north ...

in 1863, civic leaders decided to procure a dedicated town hall: the site they selected was open land just south of Waterloo railway station. The building, which 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 ...

by the council surveyor, F. S. Spencer Yates, opened in 1862. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Great George's Road; the central section featured a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

with

Tuscan order The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but with u ...

columns supporting a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

with

triglyph Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...

s; there was a stained glass pedimented window on the first floor, flanked by two other pedimented windows with plain glass, and there was a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

with

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Reviv ...

s at roof level. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour. A large extension to the rear was completed in 1893. The building served as the town hall for the Waterloo with Seaforth Urban District and, following the merger of that district with Great Crosby Urban District to form the Borough of Crosby, the town hall became headquarters of the new Crosby Borough Council in 1937. It ceased to be the local seat of government on the formation of

Sefton Council Sefton Council is the governing body for the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in the county of Merseyside, north-western England. The council was under no overall control from the 1980s until 2012 when the Labour Party took control. It is a cons ...

in 1974. However, it continued to be used as offices by the social services department of Sefton Council and also continued to be used as the local register office as well as a venue for marriages and civil partnerships. After it became clear that the building was in need of extensive refurbishment, in February 2009, a local residents' association expressed their interest in converting the building for use as a heritage centre. In March 2020, the town hall, along with the

Atkinson Art Gallery and Library The Atkinson is a building on the east side of Lord Street extending round the corner into Eastbank Street, Southport, Sefton, Merseyside, England. The building is a combination of two former buildings, the original Atkinson Art Gallery and ...

and

Bootle Town Hall Bootle Town Hall is a municipal building in Oriel Road in Bootle, Merseyside, England. The building, which is the headquarters of Sefton Council, is a Grade II listed building. History After significant population growth in the later half of th ...

, was the venue for ''A Nightingale's Song'', a video production produced by Illuminos as part of Sefton's Borough of Culture celebrations, which involved the projection of a story describing local coastal communities onto prominent buildings.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1862 City and town halls in Merseyside Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton Grade II listed buildings in Merseyside

History

See also

Notes

References