Waterloo Town Hall, also known as Crosby Town Hall (from 1937 to 1974), is a municipal building in Great George's Road in
Waterloo, Merseyside
Waterloo is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, in Merseyside, England. Together with Seaforth, the two settlements make up the borough's Church ward. The area is bordered by Crosby to the north, Seaforth to the south, the Rimrose ...
, England. The building, which was the headquarters of Waterloo Urban District Council from 1863 to 1937 and then of Crosby Borough Council from 1937 to 1974, is a
Grade II listed
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, H ...
building.
History
In anticipation of the formation of the new urban district of Waterloo with Seaforth, which was formed out of
Litherland
Litherland is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside. Until 1899 it was within the historic county of Lancashire. It was an urban district, which included Seaforth and Ford. It neighbours Waterloo to the north, Seaforth t ...
in 1863, civic leaders decided to procure a dedicated town hall: the site they selected was open land just south of
Waterloo railway station.
The building, which was designed in the
Italianate style
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...
by the council surveyor, F. S. Spencer Yates, opened in 1862.
[ The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Great George's Road; the central section featured a ]portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...
with 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 ...
columns supporting a frieze
In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...
with triglyph
Triglyph is an architectural term for the vertically channeled tablets of the Doric frieze in classical architecture, so called because of the angular channels in them. The rectangular recessed spaces between the triglyphs on a Doric frieze are ...
s; there was a stained glass
Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...
pedimented window on the first floor, flanked by two other pedimented windows with plain glass, and there was a 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 ...
with dentil
A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Rev ...
s at roof level.[ Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour.][
The building served as the town hall for the Waterloo with Seaforth Urban District and, following the merger of that district with Great Crosby Urban District to form the Borough of Crosby, the town hall became headquarters of the new Crosby Borough Council in 1937. It ceased to be the local seat of government on the formation of ]Sefton Council
Sefton Council, or Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, is the local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the majority of local government services in the borou ...
in 1974. However, it continued to be used as offices by the social services department of Sefton Council[ After it became clear that the building was in need of extensive refurbishment, in February 2009, a local residents' association expressed their interest in converting the building for use as a heritage centre.][
In March 2020, the town hall, along with the Atkinson Art Gallery and Library and Bootle Town Hall, was the venue for ''A Nightingale's Song'', a video production produced by Illuminos as part of Sefton's Borough of Culture celebrations, which involved the projection of a story describing local coastal communities onto prominent buildings.]
See also
* Listed buildings in Great Crosby
Notes
References
{{reflist
Government buildings completed in 1862
City and town halls in Merseyside
Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton
Grade II listed buildings in Merseyside