Richmond Town Hall, North Yorkshire
| Richmond Town Hall | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Richmond Town Hall | |
| Location | The Market Place, Richmond |
| Coordinates | 54°24′10″N 1°44′15″W / 54.4027°N 1.7375°W |
| Built | 1756 |
| Architect | Thomas Atkinson |
| Architectural style(s) | Neoclassical style |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
| Official name | Town Hall, Town Hall Hotel |
| Designated | 1 August 1952 |
| Reference no. | 1240517 |
.svg)  Shown in North Yorkshire | |
Richmond Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place, Richmond, North Yorkshire, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Richmond Town Council, is a grade II listed building.[1]
History
[edit]The current building was erected on the site of the ancient guildhall of the Guild of St John the Baptist.[2] It was designed by Thomas Atkinson in the neoclassical style, built in rubble masonry with a stucco finish at a cost of £600 and was completed in 1756.[3][4] The design involved a near symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the Market Place; the left hand section featured a doorway with Tuscan order columns supporting an entablature in the right hand bay, while the right hand section featured a rusticated archway in the central bay. The first floor was fenestrated by a row of sash windows with keystones. The ground floor of the left hand section formed a public house while the remainder of the building formed the town hall.[5] A double curving stone staircase provided access to the main assembly hall which displayed a coat of arms of King George II and extended the full width of the whole building on the first floor.[6]
A courtroom, which was situated to the rear of the assembly hall, was used for petty session hearings which were held one a fortnight.[7] A large five-sided stone porch containing a doorway with a fanlight, a hood mould and a keystone, flanked by pilasters supporting an entablature, was added to the central bay in the 19th century.[1] Following the end of the Second Boer War, a reception was held in the town hall for members of the volunteer battalions of the Green Howards who had served in South Africa.[8]
After the death of the founder of the scout movement, Lord Baden-Powell, in January 1941, his widow, Lady Baden-Powell, presented a landscape painting, depicting a view from Richmond Castle down the Swale Valley, to the town; the painting, which had originally been commissioned on the occasion of the Baden-Powells' marriage, was hung over the mantelpiece in the mayor's parlour.[4] A plaque commemorating the borough's fund raising effort during Warship Week was erected in the building in 1942.[2] Additional plaques were installed to reflect the borough's fund raising effort during Wings for Victory Week in 1943[9] and during Salute the Soldier Week in 1944.[10]
A large reception room on the ground floor of the right-hand section of the building was refurbished and fitted out as a council chamber with new furniture supplied by Waring & Gillow in 1956.[4] An early 17th century portrait of Queen Elizabeth I on a wooden panel, which had previously hung in the Bowes Hospital at the foot of Anchorage Hill, was installed in the council chamber.[11][12] The courtroom on the first floor remained in use as a judicial facility until 1964 when hearings moved to the new magistrates' courts in I'Anson Road.[13]
The council chamber ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Richmondshire District Council was formed at Swale House in Richmond in 1974.[14][15][16] However, it subsequently became the meeting place of Richmond Town Council.[17] The courtroom, although no longer in use, was restored in 2002,[18] and the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall attended a reception in the town hall in September 2005.[19] The future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, spoke at a meeting in the town hall, arranged to make the case for Brexit, in June 2016.[20]
Other works of art in the town hall include a painting by Harold Speed depicting Green Bridge,[21] a painting by Arthur Bell showing a goose fair in the town[22] and a painting by Robert Gallon depicting a view of the river.[23]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Historic England. "Town Hall, Town Hall Hotel (1240517)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ a b Hatcher, Jane (2011). "Some of the Treasures of Richmond Town Hall". Richmond Town Council. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus (1981). Yorkshire, The North Riding (Buildings of England Series). Yale University Press. p. 295. ISBN 978-0300096651.
- ^ a b c Hatcher, Jane (2010). "Town Hall". Richmond Town Council. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Richmond: Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Proposals" (PDF). Richmondshire District Council. p. 2. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Richmond Town Hall". North Yorkshire County Council. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Richmond". Kelly's Directory of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire. 1913. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ Powell, Geoffrey; Powell, John S.W. (2015). "The History of the Green Howards". Pen and Sword. p. 118. ISBN 978-1473857995.
- ^ "Wings for Victory Week". Art UK. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "Salute the Soldier Week". Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ Page, William (1914). "'The borough of Richmond', in A History of the County of York North Riding". London: British History Online. pp. 17–35. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "Elizabeth I (1533–1603)". Art UK. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ "Battle to stave off court's closure". The Northern Echo. 29 November 2001. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
- ^ Local Government Act 1972. 1972 c.70. The Stationery Office Ltd. 1997. ISBN 0-10-547072-4.
- ^ "No. 46690". The London Gazette. 19 September 1975. p. 11861.
- ^ "Last Richmond Council Office Sold". Richmond Online. 27 October 2015. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Meetings". Richmond Town Council. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Richmond Town Hall". Richmond Online. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Visit to Ricmond". Royal Circular. 14 September 2005. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ Ashcroft, Michael (2020). Going for Broke: The Rise of Rishi Sunak. Biteback Publishing. ISBN 978-1785906381.
- ^ "View of Green Bridge". Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "Goose Fair at Richmond". Art UK. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
- ^ "View of Richmond". Art UK. Retrieved 3 March 2022.