Alcester Town Hall is the

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 ...

Alcester Alcester ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon District in Warwickshire, England. It is west of Stratford-upon-Avon, and 7 miles south of Redditch. The town dates back to the times of Roman ...

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

, England. It is a

grade I 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, Hi ...

building.

History

The lower part of the two-storey hall was built in 1618, when the Lord of the Manor Sir Fulke Greville gave £300 for the construction of a Market Hall for the town. The lower floor originally consisted of a stone

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

. The architect for the lower part was Simon White of

Chipping Campden Chipping Campden is a market town in the Cotswold (district), Cotswold district of Gloucestershire, England. It is notable for its terraced High Street, dating from the 14th to the 17th centuries. A wool trading centre in the Middle Ages, Chipp ...

. The upper floor was intended originally to also be made of stone, but as this was found to be too costly, it was instead built from timber covered with plaster, and was completed in 1641. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto Church Street; each of the bays was flanked by short

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; there were three

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s on the first floor. The open lower floor was originally used as a covered market. In 1765 the Lord of the Manor, Francis Greville, 1st Earl of Warwick, agreed to revoke all market tolls payable to him on the condition that the hall was kept in good repair by the people of Alcester. In 1813 Francis Ingram-Seymour-Conway, 2nd Marquess of Hertford became Lord of the Manor and improvements included a horse drawn fire engine which was installed in the ground floor of the building. The

village lock-up A village lock-up is a historic building once used for the temporary detention of people in England and Wales, mostly where official prisons or criminal courts were beyond easy walking distance. Lockups were often used for the confinement of d ...

, which had been located in the south west corner of the building and had been used for petty criminals, became redundant in 1850 when a dedicated police station opened in Henley Street. In 1873 Francis Seymour, 5th Marquess of Hertford filled in the colonnade so that the ground floor could be used as a courtroom 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 session ...

s. On the Church Street frontage, the centre section of four bays then featured round headed windows and doorways with

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

s were inserted in the end bays (these have since been removed). It was around this time that the ceiling in the first floor room was modified to create the present

hammerbeam roof A hammerbeam roof is a decorative, open timber roof truss typical of English Gothic architecture and has been called "the most spectacular endeavour of the English Medieval carpenter". They are traditionally timber framed, using short beams proj ...

. During 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 was used as a hospital for casualties who had been injured on the Western Front and after the war civic leaders acquired the freehold of the building from George Seymour, 7th Marquess of Hertford so that it could become a memorial to local people who had died in the war: it was renamed the Alcester War Memorial Town Hall. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the local people of the town participated in Warship Week in February and March 1942: they raised finance for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

and chose to adopt the Flower-class corvette, HMS ''Monkshood'': the ship saw action in the

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allies of World War II, ...

. A plaque to commemorate the adoption of the ship by the people of Alcester was presented to ship and, more recently, acquired by the Alcester and District Local History Society and installed in the town hall. A model of the ship made by Bob Woodfield had previously been installed in the town hall. In 1956, the hall received grade I listing. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by M. C. McLaren of John William Roberts who was High Bailiff of Alcester in 1958. There is also a bailiff's mace which dates back to the 16th century. Today the town hall is used as a general purpose venue.

References

External links

{{commons category
Official website
City and town halls in Warwickshire Grade I listed buildings in Warwickshire Alcester