Newark Town Hall is a municipal building consisting of a town hall, assembly rooms and a market hall in

Newark on Trent Newark-on-Trent or Newark () is a market town and civil parish in the Newark and Sherwood district in Nottinghamshire, England. It is on the River Trent, and was historically a major inland port. The A1 road bypasses the town on the line of th ...

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

, 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 Irel ...

History

Former Moot Hall, Newark-on-Trent (Geograph 3655815)

The first municipal building in the town was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

building on the north side of the Market Place known as the "King's Hall", so named because of a transaction in 1547 when the

Bishop of Lincoln The Bishop of Lincoln is the ordinary (diocesan bishop) of the Church of England Diocese of Lincoln in the Province of Canterbury. The present diocese covers the county of Lincolnshire and the unitary authority areas of North Lincolnshire and ...

exchanged ownership of the town with the Crown. The King's Hall was replaced, on the same site, by the "Moot Hall" in 1708: this was a structure with arcading on the ground floor to allow markets to be held; an assembly room was established on the first floor where the court of the manor of Newark met. The coat of arms of the

Duke of Newcastle Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle ...

, who was

lord of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seig ...

, was affixed to the building. In the early 1770s, Newark Corporation decided to commission a more substantial municipal structure. The new building was designed by John Carr 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 erected on the west side of the Market Place between 1774 and 1776. Much of the exterior building work must have been finished by 1775 as in early 1775 the commissioners for building the town hall were offering contracts for the interior joinery and plasterwork. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the Market Place; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured a giant

tetrastyle 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 ...

portico with

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of c ...

columns supporting 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 ...

with the borough coat of arms in the tympanum and a statue of

justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

at its apex. There was a statue of a lion on the left of the pediment at a statue of a

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

on the right. In the late 18th century an addition was made to form the mayor's secretary's office. The building served as the offices for the mayor and the local council since it was erected. The civic rooms include a council chamber and the mayor's parlour. The main assembly room, which has also been used as a ballroom and concert hall, was designed to also serve as the borough law court. The ceiling in the assembly room was installed by Moses Kilminster of Derby. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the local borough council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Newark and Sherwood District Council Newark most commonly refers to: * Newark, New Jersey, city in the United States * Newark Liberty International Airport, New Jersey; a major air hub in the New York metropolitan area Newark may also refer to: Places Canada * Niagara-on-th ...

was formed at

Kelham Hall Kelham is a small village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire about northwest of Newark on a bend in the A617 road near its crossing of the River Trent. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 census was 207. Historical Kelham ...

in 1974. The town hall was restored between 1989 and 1991 by Guy St John Taylor Associates and James Brotherhood Associates. In 1993 the restoration work received a Europa Nostra Diploma of Merit. The building was opened up for public access as an art gallery and museum in 1999. In 2017 the exterior of the building was restored by historic building consultants Powell Williams at a cost of £600,000.

Notes

References

{{reflist Grade I listed buildings in Nottinghamshire City and town halls in Nottinghamshire Government buildings completed in 1776 Newark-on-Trent Assembly rooms