The Loughborough Town Hall is a building fronting onto the Market Place in

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second large ...

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire ...

, England. Built as a

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

and ballroom in 1855, it became a municipal building and subsequently a theatre. It 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

The origins of the building lie in the early 19th century, when four Loughborough tradesmen began a movement to provide the town with a public gathering place. It received much more momentum with the involvement of the local MP, Charles Packe of

Prestwold Hall Prestwold Hall is a country house in Leicestershire, England, standing in of land in the parish of Prestwold. It is both a private home and a venue for weddings and events. History Prestwold Hall was, for many years, the seat of the Packe famil ...

, who donated £500 towards the enterprise. With his backing, other local gentry got on board, and £8,012 was raised for the purchase of land and the construction of the building. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Charles Packe in October 1854: it was designed by the Northampton-born architect William Slater in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...

, built in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

stone and was completed in 1855. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto the Market Place; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured a round headed doorway with a

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

flanked by two rounded headed sash windows separated by

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 supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

and a

balcony A balcony (from it, balcone, "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. Types The traditional Maltese balcony ...

. On the first floor there were round headed sash windows separated by

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...

columns supporting an entablature and a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and, at roof level, there was a two stage decorative

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

. The outer sections on both floors were also fenestrated by round headed sash windows. The clock, which hangs from the main frontage of the building, was designed in 1879 and installed in 1880. The bell, which was cast by

John Taylor & Co John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, ...

, based in Loughborough was also installed at that time. The primary uses in its earliest days were as a ground floor corn exchange hall, where local farmers could meet and trade. Upstairs was a ballroom for the use of the gentry. However, from the outset all manor of public gatherings and entertainments were able to make use of the premises. Until 1888 Loughborough had no town charter and was administered by the lord of the manor, and more latterly by local boards with specific responsibility for water and sanitation works, highways, schools, and burials. When Loughborough received a charter in 1888, the new council took on these roles for the town, and was in need of a suitably dignified administrative base. The Corn Exchange company agreed to sell the building and, after it had been converted into a town hall, it re-opened as a municipal building in 1890. The suffragette,

Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (''née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Import ...

, spoke at Loughborough Town Hall during the 1910 General Election. The building was damaged during a serious fire in 1972. It was the headquarters of the

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 ...

of Loughborough but it ceased to be the local seat of government when the

Borough of Charnwood The Borough of Charnwood is a local government district with borough status in the north of Leicestershire, England, which has a population of 166,100 as of the 2011 census. It borders Melton to the east, Harborough to the south east, Leices ...

was formed in 1974. The building was converted into a theatre to the designs of Goodwin, Warner and Associates between 1973 and 1974. An extensive refurbishment of the building, which was undertaken by G. F. Tomlinson at a cost of £5 million, was completed in November 2004.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official Website
Music venues in Leicestershire

Town Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

City and town halls in Leicestershire Government buildings completed in 1855 Grade II listed buildings in Leicestershire