The Old Town Hall is a historic building on Shore Road in

Bosham Bosham () is a coastal village, ecclesiastical parish and civil parish in the Chichester District of West Sussex, within the historic county of Sussex, England, centred about west of Chichester with its clustered developed part west of this. ...

, a town in

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

, in England. The structure, which has been converted into a private house, 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

The current structure consists of several properties overlooking

Chichester Harbour Chichester Harbour is a large natural harbour in West Sussex and Hampshire. It is situated to the south-west of the city of Chichester and to the north of the Solent. The harbour and surrounding land has been designated as an Area of Outstand ...

, including a couple of workman's cottages and an early town hall, which individually date back to 1694. The properties were built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

with red brick dressings. The old town hall was used as a local meeting place, possibly by the feudal representatives of the

lords of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

, who, in the 18th century, were the

Earls of Berkeley The title Baron Berkeley originated as a English feudal barony, feudal title and was subsequently created twice in the Peerage of England by Hereditary peer#Writs of summons, writ. It was first granted by writ to Thomas de Berkeley, 1st Baron ...

. The properties were later amalgamated to form an integrated structure. To the left of the old town hall, there was a raised walkway, known as the "Trippit", which was built of stones from all over Europe and which had arrived in Bosham as ship's ballast. By the early 19th century, the building was being used as a private house. A pumping station, in the form of a

rotunda A rotunda () is any roofed building with a circular ground plan, and sometimes covered by a dome. It may also refer to a round room within a building (an example being the one below the dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C.). ...

, designed in the William and Mary style, was erected in the garden in the early 1930s. The house then remained in the hands of the Mackenzie family, from 1934 until well into the 21st century. It was marketed for sale for £4.5 million in April 2021.

Architecture

The design of the house involves an asymmetrical main frontage of six bays facing onto Shore Road. It has two storeys and an attic. It features a doorway 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 ...

and formed by a pair of brick

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 segmental

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 ...

. The other bays on the ground floor and all the bays on the first floor are fenestrated by

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. There are three

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

windows at attic level and there is a tiled roof. Internally, it contains five bedrooms, three reception rooms and five bathrooms, plus a home office with sail loft. There are exposed wooden beams throughout. The house also has boat moorings. The building, which has been heavily restored, was

grade II listed 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, H ...

in 1986, at which time it was known as Chandler's House.

References

{{reflist Bosham Grade II listed buildings in West Sussex Houses completed in 1694 City and town halls in West Sussex