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

Westbury, Wiltshire Westbury is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in west Wiltshire, England. The town lies below the northwestern edge of Salisbury Plain, about south of Trowbridge and a similar distance north of Warminster. Westbury w ...

, England. The structure, which was used as the local market hall and as a courtroom, 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 town hall was a gift to the town from Sir Manasseh Masseh Lopes who had acquired the manor of Westbury from the

Earl of Abingdon Earl of Abingdon is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created on 30 November 1682 for James Bertie, 1st Earl of Abingdon, James Bertie, 5th Baron Norreys of Rycote. He was the eldest son of Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey by his seco ...

and, with it, the pocket borough of Westbury in 1810. The building 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 ...

, was 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 1815. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the Market Place; it was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. Each bay contained two

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

columns which supported a wooden

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

. On the first floor, the central bay, which slightly projected forward, featured a blind alcove containing a clock; the other bays contained round headed

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. At roof level there was a frieze inscribed with the words "Built by Sir Massey Lopes Baronet, Recorder of this Borough, Anno Domini MDCCCXV" as well as a central

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

with the Lopes

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

in the tympanum. A small lock-up for petty criminals was established on the ground floor but was demolished by 1835. In the 19th century, the building was used as a market hall, as a place for civic meetings and as a venue for the county court hearings. A Russian gun which had been captured during the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

was placed outside the town hall in the second half of the 19th century. The borough council was abolished under the

Municipal Corporations Act 1883 A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...

. Following significant population growth, largely associated with Westbury's status as a market town, the area became an

urban district An urban district is a division generally managed by a local government. It may also refer to a city district, district, urban area or quarter Specific urban districts in some countries include: * Urban districts of Denmark * Districts of Germa ...

in 1899. However, the new council decided that the old town hall was inadequate for its meetings and instead chose to use the Laverton Institute in Bratton Road as its meeting place. The old town hall continued to be used as a courthouse into the 20th century but by the 1960s the first floor was only being used as a branch of the county library. An extensive programme of refurbishment works, which involved converting the building for commercial use and filling in the ground floor area to create shops, was completed in 1973. The building was subsequently occupied by a firm of estate agents until a South African restaurant opened in the building in 2004; it was later taken over by a firm of solicitors.

References

{{Reflist Georgian architecture in Wiltshire Government buildings completed in 1815 City and town halls in Wiltshire Westbury, Wiltshire Grade II* listed buildings in Wiltshire Grade II* listed government buildings

History

See also

References