Bridport Town Hall is an 18th-century

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

on South Street in

Bridport Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the Asker. Its origins are Saxon and it has a long history as a rope-making centre. On the coast and wit ...

, Dorset, England. It is a Grade I

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 I ...

History

Interior of Bridport Town Hall - geograph

The site selected for the town hall had previously been occupied by the Chapel of St Andrew, which was built for

Carmelite , image = , caption = Coat of arms of the Carmelites , abbreviation = OCarm , formation = Late 12th century , founder = Early hermits of Mount Carmel , founding_location = Mount Ca ...

Friars some time before 1268. The town hall was designed by architect William Tyler RA, a founding member of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

and built by James Mason at a cost of £3,000 between 1785 and 1786. The clock tower with

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, f ...

and

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 ...

was paid for by Sir

Evan Nepean Sir Evan Nepean, 1st Baronet, PC FRS (9 July 1752 – 2 October 1822)Sparrow (n.d.) was a British politician and colonial administrator. He was the first of the Nepean Baronets. Family Nepean was born at St. Stephens near Saltash, Cornwall, ...

and was added to the building around 1805. The two-storey, brick building was built in a T-shape, with the stem of the T pointing south. The ground floor was originally an

arcaded An arcade is a succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians. The walkway may be lined with retail stores. An arcade may ...

open market, while the first floor housed the council chamber. The main front, facing north onto East Street, was given five bays of arcading. Its central three bays are of projecting

rusticated ashlar Two different styles of rustication in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence; smooth-faced above and rough-faced below.">Florence.html" ;"title="Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence">Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence; smooth-faced above and r ...

, surmounted by the sculpted Bridport

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 ...

, a

Venetian window A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian ar ...

and a

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 ...

. On the inside the upper floor was supported by ten

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, w ...

-shaped ship's masts. The clock tower was renewed in 1825. In 1925, the interior of town hall was redecorated to a design by Francis Newbery, who had been brought up in Bridport, had worked as a school teacher in the town and had subsequently become the Director of the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

. The decoration included a mural of panels depicting (from left to right) weaving, spinning, a female figure representing the town, yarn processing and net braiding. Newbery also presented several important paintings to the local council including one depicting Joan of Navarre, Second Wife of King Henry IV, entering Bridport in January 1403 and another depicting King Charles II's escape from Bridport after the

Battle of Worcester The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell d ...

in September 1651. The town hall became the headquarters of Bridport Municipal Borough Council but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

West Dorset West Dorset was a local government district in Dorset, England. Its council was based in Dorchester. The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, and was a merger of the boroughs of Bridport, Dorchester and ...

Council was formed in 1974. In 2011 work started on the refurbishment of the building to a design by Jonathan Rhind Architects with support from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

; improvements included a new lift, new heating and restoration work on the original structural system supporting the upper floor. The work was carried out by Farnrise Construction at a cost of £1.4 million and the building officially re-opened in January 2012. External works, including re-painting of windows and re-pointing of brickwork, were carried out in May 2020.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.bridporttownhall.org/history Bridport Georgian architecture in England City and town halls in Dorset Grade I listed buildings in Dorset Grade I listed government buildings Government buildings completed in 1786