Camberwell Town Hall is a municipal building in Peckham Road,

Camberwell Camberwell ( ) is an List of areas of London, area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles' Church, Camberwell, St Giles ...

, London, England.

History

The building was commissioned to replace an aging 19th century

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

hall on the site which had been designed by Edward Power in a mixture of French Renaissance style and

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

for the Parish of

St Giles Saint Giles (, , , , ; 650 - 710), also known as Giles the Hermit, was a hermit or monk active in the lower Rhône most likely in the 7th century. Revered as a saint, his cult became widely diffused but his hagiography is mostly legendary. A ...

; the old vestry hall was only partially demolished to make way for the current building and significant elements of it are still visible in the western elevation of the new building along Havil Street. The old vestry hall had become the headquarters of the

Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell Camberwell was a civil parish and metropolitan borough in south London, England. Camberwell was an ancient parish in the county of Surrey, governed by an administrative vestry from 1674. The parish was included in the area of responsibility of ...

as "Camberwell Town Hall" in 1900. The new building was designed by Culpin and Bowers in the

Classical style Classical architecture typically refers to architecture consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or more specifically, from ''De architectura'' (c. 10 AD) by the Roman architect Vitruvius. Va ...

and built by Galbraith Brothers. It was officially opened by the mayor, Councillor S. E. Hall, on 10 October 1934. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Peckham Road; the central bay featured an arched doorway with a keystone in the form of the helm of a ship on the ground floor; there was a tall recess on the first, second and third floors flanked by four huge

composite order The Composite order is a mixed order, combining the volutes of the Ionic order capital with the acanthus leaves of the Corinthian order.Henig, Martin (ed.), ''A Handbook of Roman Art'', p. 50, Phaidon, 1983, In many versions the composite o ...

antae The Antes or Antae () were an early Slavic tribal polity of the 6th century CE. They lived on the lower Danube River, in the northwestern Black Sea region (present-day Moldova and central Ukraine), and in the regions around the Don River (in ...

with a clock and a

pedestal A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...

above. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour both on the first floor. The council chamber featured the original

coved ceiling A coved ceiling is a ceiling that has had the visual appearance of the point where the ceiling meets the walls improved by the addition of coving. It can also refer to a ceiling, like in a Mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a ...

and

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

ed walls, which had been recovered from the vestry hall, together with completely new seating furniture for the council members. The building took over the role of headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell and continued to be the local seat of government, when the enlarged

London Borough of Southwark The London Borough of Southwark ( ) in South London forms part of Inner London and is connected by bridges across the River Thames to the City of London and the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was created in 1965 when three smaller council ...

was formed in 1965. It then became known as "Southwark Town Hall" and benefited from some refurbishment works in the reception area in 1980. After the council moved to

160 Tooley Street 160 Tooley Street is a municipal facility in Tooley Street, Bermondsey, London. It is the headquarters of Southwark London Borough Council. History The proposed development combined the refurbishment of some Victorian warehouses with the constr ...

in March 2009, the building was sold to a developer, Alumno Developments, in December 2014. Works to convert the property into student accommodation to a design by Jestico and Whiles for

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, formerly Goldsmiths College, University of London, is a Member institutions of the University of London, constituent research university of the University of London. It was originally founded in 1891 as The G ...

were completed in 2016. Memorials to council staff who had died in the

First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

s were taken down during the works and transferred to Tooley Street. The works, which involved extending the building further north along Harvil Street, also facilitated provision of a new auditorium for " Theatre Peckham", which provides performing arts classes for young people, as well as a new café and some self-contained artists' studios within the new complex.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Southwark City and town halls in London Government buildings completed in 1934 1934 establishments in England