Cullompton Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street in

Cullompton Cullompton () is a town and civil parish in the district of Mid Devon and the county of Devon, England. It is north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2021, the parish as a whole had a population of 10,071, while the built-up area o ...

, a town in

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, in England. The building is currently used as the offices and meeting place of Cullompton Town Council.

History

Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1894 The Local Government Act 1894 ( 56 & 57 Vict. c. 73) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales outside the County of London. The act followed the reforms carried out at county leve ...

, which established parish councils in rural areas, the new parish council in Cullompton decided to commission offices for its meetings. The site they selected was occupied, in part, by the Half Moon Inn. The new building was designed in the Edwardian Free Style, built in red brick and was officially opened as the Parish Rooms in 1903. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of three bays facing onto the High Street. The left-hand bay was fenestrated by four-part

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s on the ground floor and first floor with a bi-partite

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

window at attic level. The other two bays contained openings on the ground hall and segmental-headed casement window on the first floor, albeit at different heights. The right-hand bay also contained a bi-partite

window at attic level. Internally, the principal room was the committee room. The building also served as a fire station until the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, and during the war, it accommodated a first aid post. Following local government re-organisation in 1974, the parish council was succeeded by Cullompton Town Council, which continued to hold its meetings in the town hall. In 1995, to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the council, a clock was placed on the front of the building at first floor level. It also renamed the building as the

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 ...

. After a gap of about 50 years, the tradition of holding an indoor market in the town hall every Wednesday was revived in 2008. In March 2010, councillors suggested that the vacant site previously occupied by the magistrates court on Exeter Court might be developed as a town hall, but this plan was prevented when a group formed to oppose the proposal to purchase the site were elected to two thirds of the council seats in May 2011. In April 2020, in the context of very high cost estimates for upgrading the town hall, the concept of re-locating to alternative premises was again revived.

References

{{reflist City and town halls in Devon Cullompton Government buildings completed in 1903