Widnes Town Hall is a municipal building in Victoria Road in

Widnes Widnes ( ) is an industrial town in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England, which at the 2011 census had a population of 61,464. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form th ...

, Cheshire, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Widnes Borough 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

After significant industrial growth in the second half of the 19th century, particularly in relation to the chemical industry, members of the

local board of health Local boards or local boards of health were local authorities in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulate environmenta ...

decided to procure a town hall: the site they selected had been open land in what was then little more than a village established close to the

Gossage Gossage is a family name of soapmakers and alkali manufacturers. Their company eventually became part of the Unilever group. During World War II, all soap brands were abolished by British government decree in 1942, in favour of a generic soap. Whe ...

chemical works. The new building, which was designed by F. and G. Holme in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of ancient Greek and Roman thought a ...

and built with

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

dressings, was completed in 1885. After the building became the headquarters of the new

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

of Widnes in 1892,

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...

visited the building and met with civic leaders on 7 July 1913. However, the building ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Borough of Halton ("Industry fills the ship") , image_skyline = Runcorn Bridge - geograph.org.uk - 1701094.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = The Silver Jubilee Bridge at dusk , image_flag ...

was formed in 1974. In 1982 the building became the home of the Halton Chemical Industry Museum, a temporary exhibition funded by the

Manpower Services Commission The Manpower Services Commission (MSC) was a non-departmental public body of the Department of Employment Group in the United Kingdom created by Edward Heath's Conservative Government in 1973. The MSC had a remit to co-ordinate employment and tr ...

to celebrate the centenary of the

Society of Chemical Industry The Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) is a learned society set up in 1881 "to further the application of chemistry and related sciences for the public benefit". Offices The society's headquarters is in Belgrave Square, London. There are semi-in ...

. As well as chemical industry exhibits, there were also displays dealing with other aspects of local history. The success of the exhibition led to the formation of the Museum of the Chemical Industry (subsequently renamed the Catalyst Science Discovery Centre) at Gossage House in Widnes in 1989. The town hall then became the home of the Halton Business Forum, a provider of support to local businesses. The forum also relocated, in around 2004, to the new Forum Building at Widnes Waterfront, which had been established as the Borough's economic development zone. The town hall was then left empty and deteriorating, until a developer, Stephen Lawler, acquired the building, and carried out some limited restoration works. Although the rear of the ground floor and the whole of the first floor were left undeveloped and unoccupied, the front part of the ground floor re-opened as a bar and night club known as "The Establishment".

Description

The building is in the

, with

dressings. The design involves a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Victoria Square with the end bays slightly projecting forward; the central bay, which also slightly projects forward, features a doorway with

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 open

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 ...

containing a carved tympanum. The doorway is flanked by twin

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 griffins bearing shields; there is a central sash window on the first floor and a smaller sash window on the attic floor, above which there is an inscription "MDCCCLXXXV" (1885).

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1885 City and town halls in Cheshire Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire Buildings and structures in Widnes

History

Description

See also

References