Brighton Town Hall stands on Bartholomew Square in
Brighton,
East Sussex,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The town hall contains a number of police cells which were in use until the 1960s, and which now form the Old Police Cells Museum. The town hall 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 site occupied by the town hall was once the location of the Priory of Bartholomew, which was damaged by French raiders in June 1514. The priory disappeared completely as a result of the
Chantries Act 1547 and the site was then used as a market place in the 17th century. The current building was commissioned to replace a previous town hall built on the western side of Market Street in 1727.
The foundation stone for the new building was laid by
Thomas Read Kemp
Thomas Read Kemp (23 December 1782 – 20 December 1844) was an English property developer and politician.
Life
He was the son of Sussex landowner and Member of Parliament Thomas Kemp, and his wife Anne, daughter of Henry Read of Brookland ...
, a local property developer who had encouraged the initiative, in April 1830.
The new building, which was designed by Thomas Cooper in the
Greek Revival style and built at a cost of £60,000, was officially opened in 1832.
[ The design included, on each side, a four-storey portico with 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 ...
columns below and an Ionic order columns above, with a pediment on top.[ The local police force, which was formed in 1838, established a police station in the building and police cells in the basement.]Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
gave a reading of '' A Christmas Carol'' to a large audience at the town hall and, on 16 September 1861, the opera singer Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...
performed there during a concert given by the composer and pianist Wilhelm Kuhe
Wilhelm may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* William Charles John Pitcher, costume designer known professionally as "Wilhelm"
* Wilhelm (name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name or surname
Other uses
* Moun ...
.
The building was the venue for the quarter sessions
The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388 (extending also to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535). They were also established in ...
until hearings moved to the Law Courts
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...
in Edward Street in 1967.
In March 2003 the building was entered by activists, notionally protesting at the start of the Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
, who caused significant damage to computers and furniture.
The former police cells which had been used for storage since Brighton Police had moved to new facilities in John Street in 1965, were opened up as a museum on 4 May 2005.
Services
Three rooms within the town hall are licensed for wedding ceremonies; these are the Regency Room, The Fitzherbert Room and the Council Chamber. The city's register office is located in the building and the prison cells can be visited as part of the Old Police Cells Museum.
See also
* Grade II listed buildings in Brighton and Hove: A–B
References
{{B&H Buildings
Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove
City and town halls in East Sussex
Government buildings completed in 1832