The Old Town Hall, also known as the Market House, is a former municipal building in the Market Square,

Millom Millom is a town and civil parish on the north shore of the estuary of the River Duddon in southernmost Cumberland, Cumbria, England. It is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, about north of Barrow-in-Furness ( by road) and ...

, a town in

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England. The building currently accommodates a bar and restaurant known as the "Clock Tower".

History

The building was commissioned by the Millom Local Board and Urban Sanitary Authority, with a budget of £3,500, to accommodate a boardroom and a market hall, in 1878. The site they selected was a prominent location on the northeast side of the Market Square. The building was designed in the Tudor Revival style, built in

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

with

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

dressings and was completed in 1879. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto the Market Square. The central bay featured a three-stage tower, which was projected forward. The tower involved a

porte-cochère A porte-cochère (; ; ; ) is a doorway to a building or courtyard, "often very grand," through which vehicles can enter from the street or a covered porch-like structure at a main or secondary entrance to a building through which originally a ...

in the first stage, a twelve-pane

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

ed and transomed window in the second stage, and two

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

s in the third stage, all surmounted by a

hexagon In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is de ...

al section with clock faces, a

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

and a

lantern A lantern is a source of lighting, often portable. It typically features a protective enclosure for the light sourcehistorically usually a candle, a oil lamp, wick in oil, or a thermoluminescence, thermoluminescent Gas mantle, mesh, and often a ...

. There was a doorway in the bay to the left of the tower, and single

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s in the other bays on the ground floor. On the first floor, the wings were fenestrated by six-pane mullioned and transomed windows. The local board was succeeded by Millom Urban District Council, which continued to use the building as its meeting place, in 1894. The urban district council was absorbed into Millom Rural District Council, which also continued to use the building as its meeting place, in 1934. By the 1940s, the ground floor was "a busy covered market with around 20 stalls selling sweets, ice cream, eggs, meat and vegetables." The clock tower was substantially reduced in height, with both the third stage of the tower and the hexagonal section removed due to structural issues, in the 1950s. The building ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Copeland District Council was formed in 1974. A sculpture by a former miner, Colin Telfer, entitled The Scutcher, was cast from resin and iron ore dust and installed outside the town hall, to commemorate the town's industrial past, in around 2000. The council, which had been using the building for the delivery of local services, decided in 2001 that the building was surplus to requirements and sold it for commercial use. The building subsequently accommodated a nightclub named the "Clock Tower" until 2016, when it was put up for auction with a starting price of £95,000. It subsequently became a bar and restaurant operating under the same name. A programme of restoration works to the clock, undertaken with funding from local donations and managed by a newly formed entity, the Millom Clock Trust, was completed in December 2016.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1879 City and town halls in Cumbria Millom