The Old Town Hall is a former municipal building in the Market Place in

Bawtry Bawtry is a market town and civil parish in the City of Doncaster in South Yorkshire, England. It lies south-east of Doncaster, west of Gainsborough and north-west of Retford, on the border with Nottinghamshire and close to Lincolnshire. ...

, a town in

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, in England.

History

The building was commissioned by a group of local businessmen who, in 1889, decided to form a company known as the "Bawtry Public Hall Company" to finance and erect a public hall for the town. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by a local solicitor, Francis Raynes, who was chairman of the company, on 26 April 1990. It was designed in the Victorian style, built by R. H. Rawson of

Tickhill Tickhill is a market town and civil parish in the City of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, close to the border with Nottinghamshire. At the 2001 census it had a population of 5,301, reducing to 5,228 at the 2011 Census. Geography It lies ...

in red brick with a

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...

front at a cost of £1,100, and was officially opened by Raynes on 9 October 1890. The future

Secretary of State for War The secretary of state for war, commonly called the war secretary, was a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, which existed from 1794 to 1801 and from 1854 to 1964. The secretary of state for war headed the War Offic ...

, Lord Houghton, whose seat was at Bawtry Hall, was in attendance. The main assembly hall, which was long and wide, had capacity to seat 450 people. Raynes also paid for an illuminated striking clock which was installed in the building at the time for its opening. By 1901, it also had a reading room. In the wake of the Great depression of British agriculture in the late 19th century, the population of the town fell sharply in the first decade of the 20th century, from 8,188 in 1901 to just 5,168 in 1911. Consequently, the venture was not a commercial success and, after the building had been sold for alternative use, the company was dissolved in 1916. In the 1930s, the building was converted into a

working men's club Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland, Northern Ireland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education ...

. In the 1950s, it became a car showroom, and later it became a florist. In 2016, it was converted into an art gallery, with the insertion of a

mezzanine floor A mezzanine (; or in Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft with non-sloped w ...

. In 2024, plans were approved to extend the building to the rear, providing two apartments along with a smaller commercial space at the front. The commercial space was subsequently let to a fashion retailer, Fairfax & Favor.

Architecture

The building is constructed of red brick, with a gabled

front, three bays wide. The central bay contains the doorway while the outer bays are fenestrated with round headed windows with moulded surrounds. The main frontage is decorated with seven

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 ...

s which are surmounted by

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

s. The gable is topped by a lead-clad

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

with a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures completed in 1890 City and town halls in South Yorkshire Bawtry