Hackney Town Hall is a municipal building in Hackney, London. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Hackney London Borough Council, is a 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

The original town hall in Hackney was a private house, erected in Mare Street in 1802, which had been converted into a simple

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

office for the Parish of St John in the mid 19th century. When the first civic facility became too small, it was replaced by a building further south on Mare Street, designed by Harnmack and Lambert in the Italianate style, which was completed in 1866. This, the second town hall, was extended at both ends in 1898. It became the headquarters of the

Metropolitan Borough of Hackney The Metropolitan Borough of Hackney was a Metropolitan boroughs of the County of London, metropolitan borough of the County of London from 1900 to 1965. Its area became part of the London Borough of Hackney. Formation and boundaries The borough ...

when it became a

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of districts of England, local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan distr ...

in 1899. After the second facility was also deemed inadequate, it was demolished to create a civic garden in front of what was to become the current facility. The site selected for current facility, the third town hall, was just to the west of the second town hall on land which had previously been occupied by residential properties. The foundation stone was laid by the Minister of Health, Sir Hilton Young, on 22 October 1934. It was designed by Lanchester and Lodge in the Art Deco style and officially opened by the Chairman of

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

, Lord Snell, on 3 July 1937. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with thirteen bays facing onto Mare Street; the central section of five bays featured a doorway flanked by windows on either side on the ground floor; there were five round headed widows leading onto a balcony on the first floor with a clock and the borough

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 ...

above. The principal rooms were the council chamber, the mayor's parlour, the members' room and an assembly hall running along the rear of the building. The building continued to be the local seat of government after the formation of the enlarged

London Borough of Hackney The London Borough of Hackney ( ) is a London boroughs, London borough in Inner London, England. The historical and administrative heart of Hackney is Mare Street, which lies north-east of Charing Cross. The borough is named after Hackney, Lond ...

in 1965. However, many of the council officers and their departments, who had been located in disparate departments around the area, moved to the new Hackney Service Centre in Hillman Street, designed by Hopkins Architects, in 2010. An extensive refurbishment of the town Hall to the designs of Hawkins\Brown was completed in 2017. Extinction Rebellion held a series of protests in East London followed by a people's assembly outside the town hall in July 2019.

References

External links

{{Commons category
Hackney Town Hall - Hackney Venues
Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Hackney City and town halls in London Government buildings completed in 1937 Grade II listed government buildings