The Old Town Hall is a former municipal building in the High Street,

Wombwell Wombwell () is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. In the 2011 census, data for the town was split between the ward of Wombwell and small sections that fell into the wards of Darfield (specifically the a ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, England. The structure, which since 2012 has been used as a public house, is a locally listed building.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the

coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...

industry, the Wombwell Local Board was formed in 1865. After the local board was superseded by Wombwell

Urban District Council In England and Wales, an urban district was a type of local government district that covered an urbanised area. Urban districts had an elected urban district council (UDC), which shared local government responsibilities with a county council. ...

in 1894, the new council quickly set about commissioning a

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

. The site they selected was on the corner of the High Street and Station Road. The

foundation stone A cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry Foundation (engineering), foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entir ...

for the new building was laid by Kate Mitchell, the wife of a mining engineer living at Bolton Hall, on the day of the

Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria was officially celebrated on 22 June 1897 to mark the occasion of the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. Queen Victoria was the first British monarch ever to celebrate a Diamond ...

, 22 June 1897. The building was designed by municipal architect, John Robinson, in the

Renaissance style Renaissance architecture is the European architecture of the period between the early 15th and early 16th centuries in different regions, demonstrating a conscious revival and development of certain elements of Ancient Greece, ancient Greek and ...

, built in

rubble masonry Rubble masonry or rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Some medieval cathedral walls have outer shells of ashlar wi ...

and was completed around 1900. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of three bays facing onto the High Street. The central bay contained a segmental headed doorway with a

hood mould In architecture, a hood mould, hood, label mould (from Latin , lip), drip mould or dripstone is an external moulded projection from a wall over an opening to throw off rainwater, historically often in form of a '' pediment''. This moulding can be ...

and a keystone with a pedimented plaque inscribed with the words "offices" above the doorway. There were pairs of bi-partite segmental headed windows on the first floor and at attic level, flanked by full height

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 and surmounted by a moulded pediment with

finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...

s. The outer bays were fenestrated by tri-partite segmental headed windows on both floors and surmounted by a

balustraded A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its c ...

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an upward extension of a wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/brea ...

, with a

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called French roof or curb roof) is a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer wi ...

behind. At the corner with Station Road, there was a canted bay with a segmentally headed windows on two floors and a three-stage tower above: the tower contained a quarter-chiming clock (by

Potts of Leeds Potts of Leeds was a major British manufacturer of public clocks, based in Leeds, Yorkshire, England. History William Potts was born in December 1809 and was apprenticed to Samuel Thompson, a Darlington clockmaker. In 1833, at the age of 2 ...

) in the first stage and bell- louvres in the upper stages all surmounted by a square

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 ...

. A memorial plaque to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

was attached to the north-west side of the building in around 1902. The building served as a recruiting station for young men joining the 13th (1st Barnsley Pals) and 14th (2nd Barnsley Pals) battalions of the

York and Lancaster Regiment The York and Lancaster Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army that existed from 1881 until 1968. The regiment was created in the Childers Reforms of 1881 by the amalgamation of the 65th (2nd Yorkshire, North Riding) Regiment of ...

at the start of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The building continued to serve as the town hall for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borough. The cou ...

was formed in 1974. It subsequently continued to be used for the delivery of local services until it became surplus to the council's requirements in the early 21st century. In 2011, it was purchased by a local business owner, Steve Harris, who converted it into a public house, with flats above. The public house opened the following year, the occasion being marked by the brewing of Old Town Hall ale at the Acorn Brewery. A toilet block at the south end of the structure was demolished in 2013.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1900 City and town halls in South Yorkshire Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley Wombwell