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

Oundle Oundle () is a market town and civil parish on the left bank of the River Nene in North Northamptonshire, England, which had a population of 6,254 at the time of the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 census. It is north of London and south-wes ...

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...

, England. The building, which is now let to commercial tenants, 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 first municipal building in the town was a market hall which dated back at least to the 16th century: it was adjacent to the market cross, which was stood at the east end of the Market Place, and was flanked by two rows of stalls known as the Butchers' Row. In the early 19th century, the market hall was considered to be "disfiguring the Market Place" and, following implantation of the Oundle Improvement Act 1825, the new

improvement commissioners Boards of improvement commissioners were ''ad hoc'' urban local government boards created during the 18th and 19th centuries in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and its predecessors the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Irel ...

decided to demolish the market hall, the market cross and the Butchers' Row. The

lord 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 ...

and member of parliament, Jesse Watts Russell of Ilam Hall, agreed to pay for a new town hall. Construction work on the new building started in 1826. 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

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone and was completed in 1830. The building was laid out to a

cruciform A cruciform is a physical manifestation resembling a common cross or Christian cross. These include architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly described as having a cruciform ...

plan and was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, with an assembly hall on the first floor: it was described in the ''National Gazetteer'' as being "commodious". The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing the south side of the Market Place; the central bay, which projected forward and was gabled, featured an

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

on the first floor and a coat of arms in the gable. The flanking bays and the outer bays were fenestrated by two-light and three-light

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 windows respectively. The west elevation also featured an oriel window while the east elevation featured a three-light mullioned window. In the 19th century, the assembly room on the first floor was used as the meeting place of the improvement commissioners. After completion of the Oundle Courthouse in Mill Road 1877 and the Queen Victoria Hall in West Street in 1904, activity in the town hall reduced significantly and it fell into a state of repair. Oundle Urban District Council, which had been established in 1894 and was based at council offices in North Street, commissioned a complete "reconstruction and reconditioning" of the building in 1937. Following local government reorganisation in 1974, the successor local authority, East Northamptonshire District Council sought commercial uses for the building and

Norwich and Peterborough Building Society Norwich & Peterborough Building Society (N&P) is a trading name of Yorkshire Building Society based in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Formed by the merger of the Norwich and Peterborough building societies in 1986, at the time of merger with YBS, it w ...

became the main occupant in December 1981. Following rationalisation by

Yorkshire Building Society Yorkshire Building Society is the third largest building society in the UK, with its headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It is a member of the Building Societies Association. At December 2023, the Society had total assets of mo ...

, which acquired Norwich and Peterborough Building Society in 2011, the branch closed in 2017. The building was subsequently occupied by a variety of local businesses including a firm of estate agents.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1830 City and town halls in Northamptonshire Oundle Grade II listed buildings in Northamptonshire