County Hall is a former municipal building, now used for student accommodation, in Hobson Street,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, England. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

History

Originally the old shire house on Market Hill had been used as the local facility for dispensing justice. However, following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 The Local Government Act 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41) was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established county councils and county borough councils in England and Wales. It came into effect ...

, which established county councils in every county, county leaders decided that enhanced facilities were required to accommodate a meeting place for

Cambridgeshire County Council Cambridgeshire County Council is the county council for non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire, England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county, which additionally includes the City o ...

. The site selected had previously been occupied by a Wesleyan Methodist chapel which had vacated the site in October 1913 when the congregation moved to

Wesley Methodist Church, Cambridge Wesley Methodist Church is a Methodist church located next to Christ's Pieces in central Cambridge, England. The church was founded in 1913 "to attract and retain, and not repel, the young Methodists who come to this University", in the words of ...

. The new building, designed by Herbert Henry Dunn in the

neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

, was formally opened by Sir George Fordham, the chairman of the county council, on 5 February 1914. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing Hobson Street with the end bays slightly projected forwards; there were round-headed windows on the ground floor and sash windows on the first and second floors interspersed with tall

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic classical order, orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric order, Doric and the Corinthian order, Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan order, Tuscan (a plainer Doric) ...

columns which supported 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 ...

carved with the words "County Hall 1913". A memorial commemorating council staff who died in the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

was erected in the building after the war. By the late 1920s the county council had also found the Hobson Street building too small and chose to move to the shire hall at Castle Hill in 1933. The building in Hobson Street continued to be used by the county council for, amongst other things, the County Planning Office and the County Record Office, until it was acquired by

Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The c ...

in 1986. It was subsequently converted to student accommodation, based on designs by Lyster, Grillet and Harding, and renamed the Todd Building, after Lord Todd, a

Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...

. The conversion works included the installation of a smoked-glass drum containing a spiral staircase to provide additional access for students and alterations to the rooms on the second floor to create a lecture theatre which was named the Plumb Auditorium, after Sir John Plumb, a historian. Todd and Plumb had both become fellows of Christ's College, in Todd’s case in 1944 and in Plumb's case in 1946.

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in Cambridge County halls in England Government buildings completed in 1913