Salford Civic Centre, formerly Swinton and Pendlebury Town Hall, is a municipal building at Chorley Road, in Swinton, Greater Manchester, England. It is the administrative headquarters of

Salford City Council Salford City Council is the local authority of the City of Salford in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan borough council, one of ten in Greater Manchester and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the maj ...

History

The Swinton and Pendlebury Urban District Council, which had been formed in 1894, had used Victoria House in Victoria Park as their meeting place. However, after the council became 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 1934, it decided to seek larger premises. The site selected on Chorley Road in Swinton had previously been occupied by Swinton Industrial School. The foundation stone for the new town hall was laid by the mayor on 17 October 1936. The new building was designed by architects

Percy Thomas Sir Percy Edward Thomas OBE (13 September 1883 – 19 August 1969) was an Anglo-Welsh architect who worked in Wales for the majority of his life. He was twice RIBA president (1935–37 and 1943–46). Biography Percy Edward Thomas was born on ...

and Ernest Prestwich in the

neo-classical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing style ...

after they had won a national design competition. It was built by J. Gerrard and Sons at a cost of £80,000 and officially opened by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party,

Arthur Greenwood Arthur Greenwood, (8 February 1880 – 9 June 1954) was a British politician. A prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s, Greenwood rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department f ...

MP, on 17 September 1938. The most striking feature of the design was the clock tower, in height, with clock faces on each side, in diameter. Percy Thomas was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Gold Medal for his work in 1939. A glass-walled computer centre was built to the south-east of the town hall, in order to cope with increased administration requirements, and completed in July 1973. Following the implementation of the Local Government Act 1972, Swinton and Pendlebury Town Hall, being one of the most modern town halls in the enlarged local authority area, became the meeting place of the enlarged local authority, known as the

, in 1974. The council chamber was re-modelled at that time so that it was capable of accommodating a larger number of councillors. A four-story extension located to the south-west of the town hall, which was designed by Cruickshank and Sewards and built by Fairclough Fram Gerrard, was inspected by the Duke of Edinburgh during construction and completed in the late 1970s. The City Treasury Building, also known as "Unity House", was built by

John Laing Group John Laing Group plc is a British investor, developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects such as roads, railways, hospitals and schools through Public-Private Partnership (PPP) and Private Finance Initiative ...

and officially opened by the

Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury is the most junior member of the Shadow Cabinet, and is the deputy to the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury acts as the primary opposition to the equivalent G ...

Margaret Beckett Dame Margaret Mary Beckett (''née'' Jackson; born 15 January 1943) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Derby South since 1983. A member of the Labour Party, she became Britain's first female Foreign S ...

MP, on 9 October 1991. Following the closure of Kingslea House on Barton Road in 2007, the East Wing of the civic centre became the local register office and as well a venue for weddings and civil partnerships. In July 2020, during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, a mural depicting Salford's key workers, which had been painted by an anonymous artist, was left on the steps of the civic centre: council officials decided that it would be put on public display.

Notes

References

External links

Salford Civic Centre
{{Salford B&S , state=collapsed Government buildings completed in 1938 Local government in Salford Buildings and structures in the City of Salford City and town halls in Greater Manchester Swinton, Greater Manchester