The Old Town Hall is a former municipal building at the corner of

Poplar High Street Poplar High Street is a street in Poplar, London, Poplar, located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Although the street became less used after 1860, it had previously been the principal street in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Notab ...

and Woodstock Terrace in Poplar, London. The building, which currently accommodates the Lansbury Heritage Hotel, 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 building was commissioned by the Poplar District Board of Works to serve as its hall and offices. The site the board selected, on the north side of Poplar High Street, had been occupied by a row of alms houses erected by the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

in 1628. Construction of the new building started in 1869. It was designed by Walter Augustus Hills and Thomas Wayland Fletcher with Arthur and Christopher Harston in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

, built in yellow brick at a cost of £7,500 and was completed in October 1870. The design involved a distinctive three-stage

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 tower at the southeast corner. The first stage involved a round headed opening flanked by

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 ...

colonettes supporting an

archivolt An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental Molding (decorative), moulding or band following the curve on the underside of an arch. It is composed of bands of ornamental mouldings (or other architectural elements) surrounding an arched opening, ...

and a keystone with elaborate carvings in the

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame, between the tops of two adjacent arches, or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fil ...

s. There were sash windows on the first floor and sash windows with

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

on the second floor, all surmounted by 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 ...

, a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spire ...

and a

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

. The rest of the building was fenestrated by sash windows. The floors were separated by bands with

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

detail. At roof level, there was a

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a Cornice (architecture), cornice which helps to support them. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally transl ...

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

and a series of

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. The building became the headquarters of the

Metropolitan Borough of Poplar Poplar was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London, England. It was formed as a District (Metropolis), district of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropolitan borough in ...

in 1900. It was the scene of the

Poplar Rates Rebellion The Poplar Rates Rebellion, or Poplar Rates Revolt, was a tax protest that took place in the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar, England, in 1921. It was led by George Lansbury, the previous year's Labour Mayor of Poplar, with the support of the P ...

, led by

George Lansbury George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1 ...

, which advocated the use of rates for social reform, and ultimately resulted in 19 councillors being put in prison in 1921. The building ceased to be the local seat of government when the council moved to the new town hall in Bow Street in 1938. The old town hall remained in council ownership, being used as a district housing centre from 1986, until

Tower Hamlets London Borough Council Tower Hamlets London Borough Council, also known as Tower Hamlets Council, is the local authority for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in London. The council has been under ...

sold it to a developer, Dreamstar Limited, in 2011. It was subsequently converted into a boutique hotel, opening as the Lansbury Heritage Hotel in 2015.

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets City and town halls in London Government buildings completed in 1870 Grade II listed government buildings