Easingwold Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place in Easingwold, North Yorkshire, England. The structure was used as an events venue and is now used as a commercial printing centre.

History

In the mid-19th century, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company to raise funds for the erection of an events venue in the town: the site they selected was occupied by a

shambles Shambles is an obsolete term for an open-air slaughterhouse and meat market. Shambles or The Shambles may also refer to: *The Shambles, a historic street in York, England *Shambles Square, Manchester, England *Shambles Glacier, Adelaide Island, A ...

, which had been the local place for meat trading. The new building was designed by Edward Taylor in the Victorian style, built in red and buff bricks at a cost of £1,423 and was officially opened on 31 March 1864. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing the south edge of the Market Place; the central bay featured a wide arched opening on the ground floor and three tall round headed windows on the first floor. The windows on the first floor were framed by a brick arch and surmounted by a gable containing an

oculus Oculus (a term from Latin ''oculus'', meaning 'eye'), may refer to the following Architecture * Oculus (architecture), a circular opening in the centre of a dome or in a wall Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Oculus'' (film), a 2013 American ...

. The outer bays contained doorways with segmental surrounds on the ground floor and segmental headed

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

s on the first floor. The side elevations were fenestrated in a similar style and stretched back eight bays. Internally, the principal rooms were a large market hall on the ground floor and an assembly hall and a committee room on the first floor. The architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner, was critical of the design and described the structure as a "brute" of a building. The assembly hall was used for regular petty session hearings and the annual meeting of the

court leet The court leet was a historical court baron (a type of manorial court) of England and Wales and Ireland that exercised the "view of frankpledge" and its attendant police jurisdiction, which was normally restricted to the hundred courts. Etym ...

from an early stage and a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

with a spire was installed on the roof in 1869. A meeting to secure support from local people for the proposed Easingwold Railway took place in the town hall under the chairmanship of Sir George Wombwell in October 1887: the project subsequently got underway was completed in July 1891. The company which had developed the building, the "Easingwold Public Hall Company", got into financial difficulties and was wound up in 1892 and, in an attempt to diversify community use of the building, a minute rifle range was established on the ground floor in the early 20th century. The building then operated as a cinema for much of the first half of the 20th century. The town hall was acquired by a printing business, G. H. Smith & Son, in the late 1950s, and converted for use as a commercial printing centre: print production of ''The Easingwold Advertiser & Weekly News'' got underway in the building in November 1959.

References

{{Reflist Government buildings completed in 1864 City and town halls in North Yorkshire Easingwold