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

Hemel Hempstead Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England. It is located north-west of London; nearby towns and cities include Watford, St Albans and Berkhamsted. The population at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 cens ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, England. The town hall, which was the meeting place of Hemel Hempstead Borough Council, 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

Old Town Hall - Hemel Hempstead - geograph

A market place was established in the old town under a charter awarded by

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

in 1539. By the early 19th century the market hall took the form of a long range of corn lofts, which stood on pillars, so that markets could be held underneath. A courtroom was established at the north end and a town hall was erected at the centre of the structure in 1825. After the market hall became dilapidated, civic leaders decided to demolish the old building in sections: the central and north sections of the old structure were demolished in 1851. The new building (the central section of the current structure) was designed by George Low in the

Jacobean style The Jacobean style is the second phase of Renaissance architecture in England, following the Elizabethan style. It is named after King James VI and I, with whose reign (1603–1625 in England) it is associated. At the start of James's reign, the ...

, built with red brick and stone dressings and completed later that year. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the High Street; the middle bay featured a

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

with

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric or ...

columns supporting a

balcony A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

and a

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. A bow window is a form of bay with a curve rather than angular facets; an oriel window is a bay window that does not touch the g ...

on the first floor with a gable above. The new building was extended to the north along the High Street, with arcading on the ground floor, to create a corn exchange in 1861. The remaining (southern) section of the old structure was demolished and the new building was extended to the south along the High Street, with a four-stage tower which included an

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 upper stage, to create municipal offices in 1868. Following the acquisition of part of the St Mary's Churchyard, the market place was extended in 1888. This was recorded by a stone plaque on the front of the building, which stated "Bailiwick of Hemel Hempstead: this market place was formed and these buildings erected by the Bailiff and the Town Improvement Committee AD 1888." After population growth, in part associated with the opening of Boxmoor Railway Station on the

London and Birmingham Railway The London and Birmingham Railway (L&BR) was a railway company in the United Kingdom, in operation from 1833 to 1846, when it became part of the London and North Western Railway (L&NWR). The railway line which the company opened in 1838, betw ...

in 1837 and of Hemel Hempsted railway station on the Nickey line in 1877, the area became a

municipal borough A municipal borough was a type of local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of ...

, with the town hall as its headquarters, in 1898. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the local municipal borough council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government after a new civic centre, designed by Clifford Culpin and Partners, was completed in 1966. Instead the town hall was used for theatre performances from 1978 and was refurbished for use as an arts centre in 1986.

Notes

References

{{Listed buildings in Hertfordshire Government buildings completed in 1851 City and town halls in Hertfordshire Buildings and structures in Hemel Hempstead Grade II listed buildings in Hertfordshire