The Old Town Hall is a historic town hall in Market Place in
Pontefract
Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...
,
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...
, England. It was completed in 1785 and was replaced by
Pontefract Town Hall which was completed in 1882. It was designated 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 ...
in 1950.
History
The first building on the site was a saxon moot hall which was destroyed during the
English Civil War
The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...
; this was replaced by a later building in 1656 which was demolished to make way for the current structure. The current structure, now known as the "old town hall", was designed by Bernard Hartley of Pontefract in the
Classical style
Classical architecture typically refers to architecture consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or more specifically, from ''De architectura'' (c. 10 AD) by the Roman architect Vitruvius. Va ...
as a municipal building with market room and gaol on the ground floor and assembly room (now known as the "Nelson Room") on the first floor; it was completed in 1785.
[
In 1855, Benjamin Oliveira MP, attended the town hall to donate the original ]plaster cast
A plaster cast is a copy made in plaster of another 3-dimensional form. The original from which the cast is taken may be a sculpture, building, a face, a pregnant belly, a fossil or other remains such as fresh or fossilised footprints – ...
relief (i.e. the mold
A mold () or mould () is one of the structures that certain fungus, fungi can form. The dust-like, colored appearance of molds is due to the formation of Spore#Fungi, spores containing Secondary metabolite#Fungal secondary metabolites, fungal ...
) from which the final bronze relief of " The Death of Nelson at Trafalgar" found on the pedestal
A pedestal or plinth is a support at the bottom of a statue, vase, column, or certain altars. Smaller pedestals, especially if round in shape, may be called socles. In civil engineering, it is also called ''basement''. The minimum height o ...
of Nelson's Column
Nelson's Column is a monument in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, Central London, built to commemorate Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson's decisive victory at the Battle of Trafalgar over the combined French and Spanish navies, during whi ...
had been made in 1849. The secret ballot
The secret ballot, also known as the Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's identity in an election or a referendum is anonymous. This forestalls attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote ...
was first used in the United Kingdom, and the result announced at the town hall, on 15 August 1872 to re-elect Hugh Childers
Hugh Culling Eardley Childers (25 June 1827 – 29 January 1896) was a British Liberal statesman of the nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known for his reform efforts at the Admiralty and the War Office. Later in his career, as Chancel ...
as MP for Pontefract
Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...
in a ministerial by-election
From 1708 to 1926, Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), members of parliament (MPs) of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of Great Britain (and later the United Kingdom) automatically vacated their seats when made Mi ...
following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. Excluding the prime minister, the chancellor is the highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the prime minister ...
.
The assembly rooms
In Great Britain and Ireland, especially in the 18th and 19th centuries, assembly rooms were gathering places for members of the higher social classes open to members of both sexes. At that time most entertaining was done at home and there wer ...
were built to the east of the old town hall in 1882. The old Town Hall remained the meeting place of the civic leaders and magistrates until they moved into the assembly rooms in the early 20th century.
Architectural style
Exterior
The building is constructed of sandstone 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 ...
, with a pitched Welsh-slate roof. There are three storeys with a lower two-storey gaol to the rear. The elevation facing onto the marketplace has three bay
A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
s, the middle one having been altered in the twentieth century by the installation of a glass front. The first floor elevation is decorated with six large Tuscan order
The Tuscan order (Latin ''Ordo Tuscanicus'' or ''Ordo Tuscanus'', with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two classical orders developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but wit ...
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: the windows are twelve-pane sashes, with a wrought iron 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 ...
in the centre, while the second floor windows have smaller six-pane windows. There is a flagpole on the front, and a small wooden central clocktower above with a lead cupola above with weathervane.[
]
Interior
The Nelson Room, which is situated on the first floor has a large white-marble fireplace with a sleeping lion centrepiece.[ There is a magistrates' bench with coat of arms above.][ At the opposite end is the full-size plaster cast of John Edward Carew's bronze ]relief
Relief is a sculpture, sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term ''wikt:relief, relief'' is from the Latin verb , to raise (). To create a sculpture in relief is to give ...
of The Death of Nelson.[ The Hartley Suite, named after the architect of the building, is located on the ground floor.]
See also
*Grade II* listed buildings in West Yorkshire
The county of West Yorkshire is divided into five metropolitan boroughs. The metropolitan boroughs of West Yorkshire are Leeds, Wakefield, Kirklees, Calderdale and Bradford
Bradford is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in West Yor ...
* Listed buildings in Pontefract
References
External links
Wakefield Council - Pontefract Town Hall
{{City and town halls in West Yorkshire, state=collapsed
City and town halls in West Yorkshire
Government buildings completed in 1785
Listed buildings in Pontefract