Wallsend Town Hall is a municipal building on High Street East in

Wallsend Wallsend is a town in North Tyneside, England, at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. It has a population of 43,842 and lies east of Newcastle upon Tyne. History Roman Wallsend In Roman times, this was the site of the fort of Segedunum. This ...

Tyne and Wear Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcas ...

, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of North Tyneside Council from 1974 to 2008, 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 I ...

History

After Wallsend became incorporated as a

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

in 1901, the new civic leaders initially met at the masonic hall in Station Road in Wallsend which had been completed in 1893. After finding this arrangement inadequate, civic leaders to decided to procure dedicated municipal buildings: the site they selected was open land on the south side of High Street East. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the mayor, William Boyd, in 1907. It was designed by E. F. W. Liddle and P. L. Brown in the Edwardian Baroque style, was built at a cost of £15,557 and was officially opened by Alderman George Allan in September 1908. The design involved a asymmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto High Street East with the end bays projected forward as pavilions; the central section, which slightly projected forward, featured a round headed doorway on the ground floor, a balcony and a triple window on the first floor and an open pediment containing the town's

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in its ...

above. On the right of the symmetrical section there two bays which were set back and another two bays which curved round into Lawson Street. The architect installed a turret and dome above the curved section, and a projecting clock, which had been a gift from William Boyd, was installed on the face of the right hand pavilion. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber which incorporated nine stained glass windows each of which depicted two heraldic shields of local relevance.

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

, accompanied by the

Duke of Edinburgh Duke of Edinburgh, named after the city of Edinburgh in Scotland, was a substantive title that has been created three times since 1726 for members of the British royal family. It does not include any territorial landholdings and does not prod ...

, visited the town hall and waved to the crowd from the balcony on 29 October 1954. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Wallsend Borough Council and became the local seat of government of North Tyneside Council in 1974. It continued to be the meeting place of the council until it moved to new premises at Cobalt Business Park in 2008. After carrying out a local consultation in spring 2009, the council established there was widespread support for refurbishing the town hall and finding an alternative use for it. The town hall, which had become surplus to requirements, was sold to a developer, Sovereign Adavo, in 2014 and a programme of works to convert the building for commercial use was completed in February 2015.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1908 City and town halls in Tyne and Wear Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of North Tyneside Grade II listed buildings in Tyne and Wear Wallsend