Bridport Town Hall is an 18th-century

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 ...

on South Street in

Bridport Bridport is a market town and civil parish in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the River Asker, Asker. Its origins are Anglo-Saxons, Saxon and it has a long history as a ...

, Dorset, England. It is a Grade I

listed building 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 ...

History

Interior of Bridport Town Hall - geograph

The site selected for the town hall had previously been occupied by the Chapel of St Andrew, which was built for

Carmelite The Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel (; abbreviated OCarm), known as the Carmelites or sometimes by synecdoche known simply as Carmel, is a mendicant order in the Catholic Church for both men and women. Histo ...

Friars some time before 1268. The town hall was designed by architect William Tyler RA, a founding member of the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

and built by James Mason at a cost of £3,000 between 1785 and 1786. The clock tower with

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

and

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

was paid for by Sir

Evan Nepean Sir Evan Nepean, 1st Baronet, PC FRS (9 July 1752 – 2 October 1822)Sparrow (n.d.) was a British politician and colonial administrator. He was the first of the Nepean baronets. Family Nepean was born at St. Stephens near Saltash, Cornwal ...

and was added to the building around 1805; that year a chiming clock with four seven-foot dials was installed by Handley & Moore of Clerkenwell. The two-storey, brick building was built in a T-shape, with the stem of the T pointing south. The ground floor was originally an arcaded open market, while the first floor housed the council chamber. The main front, facing north onto East Street, was given five bays of arcading. Its central three bays are of projecting

rusticated ashlar image:Palazzo medici riccardi, bugnato 01.JPG, Two different styles of rustication in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence; smooth-faced above and rough-faced below Rustication is a range of masonry techniques used in classical architecture g ...

, surmounted by the sculpted Bridport

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

, a Venetian window and a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

. On the inside the upper floor was supported by ten

octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...

-shaped ship's masts. The clock tower was renewed in 1825. A new clock mechanism was installed in 1919 by John Smith of Derby, and the bells were recast in 1928. In 1925, the interior of town hall was redecorated to a design by Francis Newbery, who had been brought up in Bridport, had worked as a school teacher in the town and had subsequently become the Director of the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; ) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, and design. These are all awa ...

. The decoration included a mural of panels depicting (from left to right) weaving, spinning, a female figure representing the town, yarn processing and net braiding. Newbery also presented several important paintings to the local council including one depicting Joan of Navarre, Second Wife of King Henry IV, entering Bridport in January 1403 and another depicting King Charles II's escape from Bridport after the

Battle of Worcester The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 in and around the city of Worcester, England and was the last major battle of the 1642 to 1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A Parliamentarian army of around 28,000 under Oliver Cromwell def ...

in September 1651. The town hall became the headquarters of Bridport Municipal Borough Council but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

West Dorset West Dorset was a Non-metropolitan district, local government district in Dorset, England. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972, and was a merger of the boroughs of Bridport, Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester ...

Council was formed in 1974. In 2011 work started on the refurbishment of the building to a design by Jonathan Rhind Architects with support from the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

; improvements included a new lift, new heating and restoration work on the original structural system supporting the upper floor. The work was carried out by Farnrise Construction at a cost of £1.4 million and the building officially re-opened in January 2012. External works, including re-painting of windows and re-pointing of brickwork, were carried out in May 2020.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.bridporttownhall.org/history Bridport Georgian architecture in England City and town halls in Dorset Grade I listed buildings in Dorset Grade I listed government buildings Government buildings completed in 1786