Poplar Town Hall is a municipal building at the corner of Bow Road and Fairfield Road in Poplar, London. It is a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

Former Poplar Board of Works, Poplar High Street - geograph

The building was commissioned to replace an aging mid-19th century municipal building with a distinctive

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") 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, whi ...

al tower and dome and

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, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

detail on Poplar High Street which had been built in 1870. It had become 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 of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a metropolitan borough in the County of London in 1900. It comprised Poplar, Millwall, Bromle ...

in 1900. The old building on the High Street had been the scene of the

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

, led by

George Lansbury George Lansbury (22 February 1859 – 7 May 1940) was a British politician and social reformer who led the Labour Party from 1932 to 1935. Apart from a brief period of ministerial office during the Labour government of 1929–31, he spent ...

, which resulted in 19 councilors being put in prison in 1921. The council sold the old town hall to a developer in 2011 and it was subsequently converted into a hotel. In the 1930s civic leaders decided this arrangement was inadequate for their needs and that they would procure a new town hall: the site chosen for the new building had been occupied by a 19th century

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

hall. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the former mayor, Alderman

Charles Key Charles William Key, PC (8 August 1883 – 6 December 1964) was a British schoolmaster and Labour Party politician. Coming from a very working-class background, the generosity of a family friend made it possible for him to get a start in life ...

, on 8 May 1937. It was designed by Culpin and Son in the Moderist style in a shape that took the form of a

trapezoid A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium (). A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...

. The design involved a rounded frontage at the junction of Bow Road and Fairfield Road; there were layers of continuous stone facing panels above and below a continuous band of glazing on the first, second and third floors. ''The Builders'', a frieze by sculptor David Evans on the face of the building, was unveiled by Lansbury at the official opening of the building on 10 December 1938. The Portland Stone panels commemorated the trades constructing the town hall and symbolised the borough's relationship with the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

and the youth of Poplar. The principal rooms were the council chamber, the mayor's parlour and an assembly hall which benefited from a sprung Canadian maple dance floor. The building was proclaimed by the council to be the first town hall to be erected in the modernist style but ceased to function as the local seat of government when the enlarged

London Borough of Tower Hamlets The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London boroughs, London borough covering much of the traditional East End of London, East End. It was formed in 1965 from the merger of the former Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropol ...

was formed in 1965. After being used as workspace by the council until the mid-1980s, the town hall was sold in the 1990s to a developer who added a roof extension and converted it for commercial use. It was subsequently used as a business centre.

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets City and town halls in London Government buildings completed in 1938 Grade II listed government buildings