The new Town Hall is a former technical college in Library Street,

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the north-east and Warrington t ...

, England which was converted into a municipal facility in 1990. It 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

The building, which was designed by Briggs and Wolstenholme in the

Baroque style The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

, was opened by the Countess of Crawford as the Wigan Mining and Technical College in 1903. The design included a porch with large Ionic order columns and frieze above with the words "Mining Technical College". The design also included four turrets 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, fro ...

s at roof level. An extension was added in 1929. After expanding into new areas such as building and the arts, the college became known as Wigan College of Technology. The college needed larger premises to accommodate this expansion and secured new facilities in Walkden Avenue in 1990. This enabled the vacated building in Library Street to be converted into a municipal facility to replace the aging

old Town Hall Old or OLD may refer to: Places * Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, ...

at the corner of King Street and Rodney Street. The newly-converted facility was officially opened as the new headquarters of the

Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council The Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council is the local authority for the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in the United Kingdom. It consists of 75 Councillors with one-third being elected every three years in four. The borough is separated into 25 wa ...

by the Princess of Wales on 25 November 1991. She unveiled a commemorative plaque and then had lunch with civic leaders. In late 2008, the red

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 ...

facade was carefully repaired to stop pieces from breaking away. Then, a more extensive restoration of the town hall, to a design by GT3 Architects and undertaken by ISG Construction at a cost of £7.2 million, was completed in 2016. The restoration work involved changes to the interior layout to create an open-plan environment: it also included removal of ceilings to reveal original cornices, conservation of the original flooring and repairs to decorative tiling. During the work the contractors discovered a hidden network of tunnels, thought to be part of a heating system, as well an ornate

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

floor and an antique stained glass window. Important works of art in the town hall include a painting by George Earl depicting Victorians departing by train from King's Cross Station on a journey to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. One of the function rooms displays copies of ten

Royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but s ...

s that the town has received since it was granted

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle A ...

status in 1246.

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{{Buildings and structures in Wigan Borough Grade II listed buildings in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan City and town halls in Greater Manchester Government buildings completed in 1903 1903 establishments in England

History

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