Morley Town Hall is a municipal facility in Morley, West Yorkshire,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The town hall, which is the meeting place of Morley Town Council, 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

Previously 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 ...

in Morley had met in a room in a building in Queen Street. After the town secured borough status in 1885, the first Mayor of Morley, Joseph Schofield, ran a design competition for a new town hall: there were 73 entries submitted. The competition was won by Henry Holtom and George Arthur Fox from Dewsbury with a

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 ...

design. The foundation stone was laid by Tom Clough, the then Mayor of Morley, on 8 October 1892. The building cost over £41,000 to build and featured a

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or cur ...

with a Roman

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 ...

on the

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 ...

and a dome which is 160 feet high. A clock, known as the "Sam Rhodes Clock" and named after Councillor Sam Rhodes, the chairman of the Town Hall Committee, was installed in April 1995. The building was officially opened by

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom f ...

MP (who had been born in

Morley Morley may refer to: Places England * Morley, Norfolk, a civil parish * Morley, Derbyshire, a civil parish * Morley, Cheshire, a village * Morley, County Durham, a village * Morley, West Yorkshire, a suburban town of Leeds and civil parish * M ...

) on 16 October 1895. Ellen Mary Rope painted three tall bas-reliefs ("Faith", "Hope" and "Charity"), high up above the dais in the Alexandra Hall in autumn 1895. Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the building and had coffee with the civic leaders on 28 October 1954. On the morning of 18 August 1961, a fire broke out in the nearby Albert Mills which, before demolition, were used for storing paper. As the mill burned, sparks and burning paper were blown against the dome of the town hall and set alight its timber construction. Within two hours the dome was destroyed and the clock put out of action. Restoration was completed on 14 December 1962. The town hall was the headquarters of the

Municipal Borough of Morley Morley was a local government district in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Apart from the town of Morley, it included Churwell (a separate Local Government District until 1891), East Ardsley (or Ardsley East), West Ardsley, Drighlington and G ...

but it ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Leeds City Council Leeds City Council is the local authority of the City of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in West Yorkshire and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the majority of l ...

was formed in 1974. Instead it became the meeting place of Morley Town Council. The town hall has been the venue for various concerts and films: the

Grimethorpe Colliery Band The Grimethorpe Colliery Band is a brass band, based in Grimethorpe, South Yorkshire, England. It was formed in 1917, as a leisure activity for the workers at the colliery, by members of the disbanded Cudworth Colliery Band. Along with the Blac ...

recorded one of their "Brass From The Masters" albums in the town hall in 1999 and the ITV show

Emmerdale ''Emmerdale'' (known as ''Emmerdale Farm'' until 1989) is a British soap opera that is broadcast on ITV1. The show is set in Emmerdale (known as Beckindale until 1994), a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales. Created by Kevin Laffan, ...

used the town hall for both interior and exterior shots in spring 2007.

References

External links

Morley Archives
{{Authority control Grade I listed buildings in Leeds Government buildings completed in 1895 Buildings and structures in Leeds Grade I listed government buildings City and town halls in West Yorkshire Morley, West Yorkshire Neoclassical architecture in Leeds

History

See also

References

External links