Woburn Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place,

Woburn, Bedfordshire Woburn (, meaning twisted or crooked stream) is a town and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is situated about southeast of the centre of Milton Keynes, and about south of junction 13 of the M1 motorway. At the 2011 census, it had a po ...

, England. The town hall, which has largely been converted for retail use, 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

The first municipal building in Woburn was a three-storey market hall commissioned by the

John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford, (30 September 17105 January 1771) was an 18th-century British statesman.G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peer ...

and completed in 1737. The ground floor was used as a shambles i.e. a meat market. On each side there was a

Doric order The Doric order was 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 c ...

peristyle In ancient Greek and Roman architecture, a peristyle (; from Greek ) is a continuous porch formed by a row of columns surrounding the perimeter of a building or a courtyard. Tetrastoön ( grc, τετράστῳον or τετράστοον, lit=f ...

and at roof level there was a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

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 ...

. By the early 19th century the building was dilapidated and

John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, (6 July 1766 – 20 October 1839), known as Lord John Russell until 1802, was a British Whig politician who notably served as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of All the Talents. He was the fathe ...

decided to demolish it and to replace it with a new structure on the same site. The new building was designed by Edward Blore in the Jacobethan style, built in brown brick with ashlar stone dressings and was completed in 1830. The design involved a broadly symmetrical main frontage with a single bay facing northeast onto the High Street; there was a doorway with an

archivolt An archivolt (or voussure) is an ornamental 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, corresponding to the ...

on the ground floor, an oriel window on the first floor and a gable containing a panel with the crest of the Dukes of Bedford above. On the south west elevation there were nine bays, separated by

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es and gabled at roof level; the bays were mainly fenestrated with three-light

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid supp ...

ed and transomed windows on the ground floor and with small round headed windows on the first floor. A three-stage tower with a

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

-shaped roof formed part of the northwest elevation of the building. Internally, the principal room was the assembly hall on the first floor. The building continued to be owned by successive Dukes of Bedford although they did not charge rent for its use. It was largely used by the local parish for community events and as a courthouse for

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The sessio ...

hearings for Woburn and the surrounding parishes. It was also home to a public library known as the Woburn Institute until 1884, when the institute relocated and the building was subsequently restored at the expense of

Francis Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford Francis Charles Hastings Russell, 9th Duke of Bedford KG (16 October 1819 – 14 January 1891) was an English politician and agriculturalist. Life Known as Hastings, the 9th Duke was born in Curzon Street, London, the son of Major-General Lo ...

. A short single-storey extension to the southwest was commissioned by Herbrand Russell, 11th Duke of Bedford in 1912. After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, the 2nd Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment presented two German field guns, which the regiment had captured at the

Battle of the Selle The Battle of the Selle (17–25 October 1918) was a battle between Allied forces and the German Army, fought during the Hundred Days Offensive of World War I. Prelude After the Second Battle of Cambrai, the Allies advanced almost and liber ...

, to the 11th Duke, who chose to display one of guns outside the town hall in the late 1930s. In November 1944, during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, the future

Home Secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...

, Roy Jenkins, who at the time was working as a code breaker at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes ( Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years followin ...

, attended a dance at the town hall. In September 1958, the town hall was the venue for a speech by local

member of parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...

, Alan Lennox-Boyd, who was then serving as Secretary of State for the Colonies, during which he was repeatedly interrupted by Empire Loyalists. The ground floor was converted into offices in the early 1970s, then into an antiques shop in 1993 and finally into a homewares shop in 2015.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1830 City and town halls in Bedfordshire Woburn, Bedfordshire Grade II listed buildings in Bedfordshire