The Old Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street,

Billericay Billericay ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Basildon in Essex, England. It lies within the London Basin, east of the City of London. The town was founded in the 13th century by the Stratford Langthorne Abbey, Abbot of West Ham, ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England. The structure, which currently operates as a restaurant, was the meeting place of Billericay Urban District Council.

History

The building was commissioned as a market hall for the town. It was designed 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 ...

, built in brick with a

cement render Cement render or cement plaster is the application of a mortar mix of sand and cement, (optionally lime) and water to brick, concrete, stone, or mud brick. It is often textured, colored, or painted after application. It is generally used on ...

finish and was completed in 1830. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto the High Street. The building was originally arcaded on the ground floor, so markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. The central section of three bays was fenestrated by three tall

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s with

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s on the first floor. The outer bays featured round headed doorways with

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

s on the ground floor and niches on the first floor. On the ground floor, the bays were separated by

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 supporting a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. Above the first floor, there was a tall

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 ...

, and a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

with a

roundel A roundel is a circular disc used as a symbol. The term is used in heraldry, but also commonly used to refer to a type of national insignia used on military aircraft, generally circular in shape and usually comprising concentric rings of differ ...

containing a

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 ...

in the tympanum. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor which was used to accommodate the local grammar school. In 1862, a group of local businessmen formed a company, to be known as the Billericay Town Hall Company to acquire the building and operate it as a public hall. The assembly room was then made available for public meetings, and part of the ground floor was used as a police station. In March 1883, a public meeting was held at which the

Great Eastern Railway The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern R ...

presented proposals for the construction of the

Shenfield–Southend line The Shenfield–Southend line is a branch line off the Great Eastern Main Line in Essex, in the east of England. It links in the west to , in Southend-on-Sea, in the east. The vast majority of services connect to or from the Great Eastern Main ...

. In 1934 most of the

Billericay Rural District Billericay Rural District was a local government district in Essex, England from 1894 to 1934. It consisted of the following parishes: *Basildon * Brentwood (1894–1899; used to create Brentwood Urban District) *Bowers Gifford * Childerditc ...

was reconstituted as

Billericay Urban District Billericay ( ) is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Basildon in Essex, England. It lies within the London Basin, east of the City of London. The town was founded in the 13th century by the Abbot of West Ham, in his Manor of Great Bur ...

and, in 1938, the assembly room became the council chamber of Billericay Urban District Council. The police service relocated to new premises further south along the High Street, on the corner with London Road, at that time. The building served as the local civil defence headquarters during the

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 ...

. The urban district was renamed Basildon Urban District in 1955, although the council continued to be based at Billericay Town Hall and the adjoining offices in Billericay until the early 1960s when it moved into new premises in Basildon itself. The building remained empty and deteriorating from the late 1970s until the late 1990s. After

Essex County Council Essex County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Essex in England. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county; the non-metropolitan county excludes Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock which ...

sold the building to a developer in 1999, a major programme of refurbishment works costing £500,000 was undertaken. The works enabled the building to be converted into a restaurant in 2000. The restaurant initially operated as "Cafe Uno" before being re-branded as "Brasserie Chez Gérard" in 2007. Then, in 2010, a new operator took over the lease and undertook further refurbishment works, to a design by Brown Studio, after which the restaurant was rebranded as "Wildwood".

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1830 City and town halls in Essex Billericay Restaurants in Essex