The Council Buildings are based in Newton Road,

Rushden Rushden is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the North Northamptonshire district, in the ceremonial county of Northamptonshire, England, around east of Northampton. The parish is on the border with Bedfordshire, north of B ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

, England. The structure, which was the headquarters of Rushden Urban District Council, is a locally listed building.

History

Following significant population growth, partly associated with the local boot and shoe making industry, the area became an urban district in 1895. The council held its early meetings in the local

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. However, in the early 20th century, civic leaders decided to procure purpose-built council buildings: the site they chose was open land on the south side of what was then Church Lane (later renamed Newton Road). The vestry hall, which had been owned by the local board, was subsequently sold to St Mary's Church and the proceeds applied towards repaying funds borrowed to finance the cost of the new building. The new building was designed by William Madin in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

, built in red brick with stone dressings by a local contractor, R. Marriott, and was officially opened on 19 December 1906. The design involved a symmetrical frontage at the junction of Newton Road and Park Road; the corner section featured a doorway flanked by

Doric order The Doric order is 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 t ...

columns supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

inscribed with the words "Council Buildings"; on the first floor there was a curved stone balcony with a

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

bearing the town's

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

and a recessed French door with an arched surround; the section was flanked by full-height

octagon In geometry, an octagon () 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, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

al turrets and there was a gable at roof level. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the offices of the town surveyor and the sanitary inspector. A second storey was added to the Newton Road elevation of the building in 1934. The council buildings continued to serve as the headquarters of Rushden Urban District Council for much of the 20th century and initially remained the meeting place of the enlarged East Northamptonshire District Council after it was formed in 1974. The district council moved to temporary offices in

Thrapston Thrapston is a market town and civil parish in the North Northamptonshire unitary authority area of Northamptonshire, England. It was the headquarters of the former East Northamptonshire district, and at the time of the 2021 census, had a pop ...

in the mid-1980s, but continued to use the Rushden building as a customer service centre for locally delivered services such as housing benefits. A programme of improvement works, which included the construction of a glass atrium connecting the council buildings with the adjacent Carnegie Library, was carried out in the mid-1990s. The works also included the creation of a heritage centre, on the first floor of the council buildings, which was officially opened by the Chairman of East Northamptonshire District Council, Councillor Ted Sampson, in October 1995. After putting on a series of exhibitions with local themes, the heritage centre closed in 2006.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1906 City and town halls in Northamptonshire Rushden