Chester Town Hall is in Northgate Street in the centre of the city of

Chester Chester is a cathedral city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, Wales, River Dee, close to the England–Wales border. With a built-up area population of 92,760 in 2021, it is the most populous settlement in the borough of Cheshire West an ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade II*

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

In 1698 an exchange was built to accommodate the city's administrators. This building burnt down in 1862. A competition was held to build a new town hall and this was won by

William Henry Lynn William Henry Lynn (1829–1915) was an Ireland, Irish-born architect with a practice in Belfast and the north of England. He is noted for his Gothic Revival architecture, Ruskinian Venetian Gothic public buildings, which include History of Ches ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. The building cost £40,000 (equivalent to £ in ). It was officially opened on 15 October 1869 by the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales (, ; ) is a title traditionally given to the male heir apparent to the History of the English monarchy, English, and later, the British throne. The title originated with the Welsh rulers of Kingdom of Gwynedd, Gwynedd who, from ...

(the future Edward VII) who was accompanied by W. E. Gladstone, the Prime Minister. On 27 March 1897 the council chamber on the second floor was gutted by fire. It was restored by T. M. Lockwood the following year. In 1979 a clock was installed in the tower with three faces; there is no face on the west side of the tower.

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 19268 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. ...

, accompanied by the Duchess of Sussex, attended lunch at the town hall during their visit to Cheshire on 14 June 2018.

Architecture

Exterior

The hall is built in banded pink and buff

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

with a grey-green slate roof. The building is nearly symmetrical, in ten bays, and in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style, applying features of late 13th-century

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High Middle Ages, High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It evolved f ...

to a modern use. Above the central two bays is a tower which terminates with

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

s and a short diagonal spire. The spire rises to a height of . The building has a semi-basement, two main storeys and a dormer attic. The entrance is approached by two opposed flights of steps. Above the porch are four sculptures in Bath stone depicting episodes from the history of the city.

Interior

The entrance leads to the Waiting Hall. Also on this floor are the Palatine Room, the Assembly Room and the Court Room. Flanking the doors of the Waiting Hall are busts of George V and Sir Horatio Lloyd, who was Recorder of Chester from 1866 to 1921. Also in the hall are three sculptures which depict

minstrel A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. The term originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist enter ...

s marching to the aid of Earl Ranulph III who was besieged in Rhuddlan Castle, Sir William Brereton following his arrest in 1642, Edward, the Black Prince granting a charter to the city in 1354 and Henry VII granting county status to Chester in 1506. Outside the Assembly Room is a war memorial to the 768 citizens of Chester who died as a result of the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and a plaque to the memory of those who died in the Second World War. The Assembly Room is the largest room in the Town Hall and has a stage at one end. On the staircase are shields and plaques presented by visitors to the Town Hall. Above the staircase are Victorian stained glass windows depicting the seven Norman Earls of Chester. On the first floor are the council chamber, the Lord Mayoral suite, a committee room and the members' room. The council chamber was rebuilt after the fire of 1897. It is panelled and contains wooden and stone carvings. The Lord Mayoral suite consists of the Lord Mayor's Parlour and the Mayoress' Parlour. In the committee room are panels bearing the names of the mayors of Chester from 1238, the

sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

s from 1836, the

earl Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the Peerages in the United Kingdom, peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ...

s from around 1070, the clerks and town clerks from 1291 and the recorders from 1506.

Present use

The Town Hall stands as a symbolic expression of the civil government of the city. Many of the rooms in the Town Hall are available for hire, and the hall is licensed for weddings.

References

External links

* {{Commons category-inline, Chester Town Hall
Chester Tourist
1869 establishments in England Government buildings completed in 1869 Gothic Revival architecture in Cheshire Grade II* listed buildings in Cheshire Buildings and structures in Chester City and town halls in Cheshire