Wesley House, formerly the Council Offices, is a former municipal building on Bull Hill,

Leatherhead Leatherhead is a town in the Mole Valley District of Surrey, England, about south of Central London. The settlement grew up beside a ford on the River Mole, from which its name is thought to derive. During the late Anglo-Saxon period, Leathe ...

, Surrey, England. The building, which was the headquarters of Leatherhead Urban District 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

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the development of family-based manufacturing firms, the area became an urban district in 1894. Civic leaders initially established themselves in offices in Church Street. However, as the responsibilities of local authorities increased, the council decided to procure purpose-built council offices: the site they selected on Bull Hill was occupied by an 18th century building known as "Kingston House". The works began with the demolition of Kingston House which took place in 1933. The new building was designed by C. H. Rose and H. R. Gardner in the

neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...

and built in red brick with stone dressings. At its official opening in May 1935, Viscount Wakefield unveiled a plaque to commemorate John Wesley's historic visit to Kingston House. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto the corner of Bull Hill and Leret Way with the end bays featuring sash windows with swan-necked

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

s on the first floor; the central bay featured a flight of steps leading up to a doorway with a stone surround and

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or ' ...

supporting an entablature. On the first floor there was an iron

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 ...

bearing the town's

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

and a prominent rounded headed French door flanked by full-height

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s supporting a pediment. At roof level there was a

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

flèche Flèche or Fleche may refer to: *Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire *Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition *Flèche (fencing) The flèche is an aggressive offensive fencing technique used with foil and épée. Background ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were an entrance hall, which was decorated in an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style, and a semi-circular council chamber which jutted out to the rear of the building and featured fine wooden panelling. The council offices continued to serve as the headquarters of Leatherhead Urban District Council for much of the 20th century and remained a meeting place for the enlarged

Mole Valley District Council Mole Valley is a local government district in Surrey, England. Its council is based in Dorking. The other town in the district is Leatherhead. The largest villages are Ashtead, Fetcham and Great Bookham, in the northern third of the district ...

after it was formed in 1974. However, it ceased to be the local seat of government when the district council moved to modern offices at Dorking in 1983. Renamed Wesley House to commemorate the connection with the Methodist theologian, the building was then occupied by the local

Citizens Advice Bureau Citizens AdviceCitizens Advice is the operating name of The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux which is the umbrella charity for a wider network of local advice centres. The abbreviation CitA is sometimes used to refer to this nation ...

and by a security alarms business before being sold to a developer in December 1999. The developer refurbished the council chamber, converted the remainder of the building for commercial use and added a glass and steel west wing onto the complex.

Notes

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1935 City and town halls in Surrey Leatherhead Grade II listed buildings in Surrey