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The Hall for Cornwall, known as Truro City Hall until 1997, is an events venue in Boscawen Street in
Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...
,
Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...
, England. The building, which was previously the headquarters of Truro City 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 first municipal building in Truro was a 17th-century market house, which was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, with an assembly hall on the first floor. It was replaced with a more substantial structure in 1809 but when that was also found to be inadequate, civic leaders commissioned a new building on the same site in the early 1840s. The new building was designed by Christopher Eales in the Italianate style, built in
granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...
stone and completed in 1846. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Boscawen Street; the ground floor was arcaded and rusticated, while the first floor had
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 windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...
s with triangular pediments on the central and outer windows and with segmental pediments on the other windows. There were quoins at the corners and at roof level there was a heavily
modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a Cornice (architecture), cornice which helps to support them. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally transl ...
ed
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...
. Internally, the north end of the complex accommodated the municipal buildings, which included a courtroom and a council chamber, while the south end accommodated a market hall. A clock, manufactured by J. Moore & Sons of Clerkenwell, was provided in 1854 (the gift of J. L. Damper Esq.). A clocktower was installed on the Boscawen Street frontage in 1858. The
suffragette A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in particular to members ...
, Helen Beedy, gave a speech advocating voting rights for women at a public meeting in the building in December 1874. In 1877, when Truro became a city, the complex was renamed Truro City Hall. In the early 20th century civic leaders decided to make the market hall at the rear of the complex available for public use. This resulted in the market hall being operated as a skating rink in 1907 and then as a cinema in 1912. In 1914 the clock tower caught fire; it spread through the roof and gutted much of the building. After the building was restored a new clock and chimes were provided by an anonymous donor: the new clock was by Smith of Derby, and the four bells by Taylor of Loughborough. After the fire, the market hall was remodelled as a theatre with a stage in 1925 and, following a period of neglect in the 1960s, it served as a flea market in the 1970s. The
rock band ''Rock Band'' is a series of rhythm games first released in 2007 and developed by Harmonix. Based on their previous development work from the Guitar Hero, ''Guitar Hero'' series, the main ''Rock Band'' games have players use game controllers mod ...
,
Queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...
, played their first live concert in the building on 27 June 1970. The municipal buildings continued to serve as the headquarters of Truro City Council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged Carrick District Council was formed at offices in Pydar Street in 1974. After a major refurbishment in the mid-1990s, the former market hall at the rear of the complex re-opened as ''Hall for Cornwall'' on 15 November 1997. In September 2008 the venue put on a re-working of the play, '' The Jew of Malta'' by
Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...
, entitled ''Barabas'', which featured a Cornish, national and international cast. The venue then became one of a number of organisations involved in
Cornwall Council Cornwall Council ( ), known between 1889 and 2009 as Cornwall County Council (), is the local authority which governs the non-metropolitan county of Cornwall in South West England. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary ...
's proposed National Theatre of Cornwall, when the initiative was launched in February 2012. Christmas shows, directed by locally based director and producer, Simon Harvey, included ''Dick Whittington and his Mousehole Cat!'' in December 2016 and ''Jack and the Beanstalk - A gigantic adventure!'' in December 2017. A major programme of refurbishment works, undertaken by Kier Group at a cost of £20 million to a design by Burrell Foley Fischer, began in June 2018. The project involved a completely new auditorium, located in the centre of the complex, increasing the capacity of the venue from 965 seats to 1,354 seats: it is accessed from the north end of the complex, i.e. Boscawen Street, whereas the old auditorium was accessed from the south end of the complex, i.e. Back Quay. Although the venue continues to be called ''Hall for Cornwall'', the new auditorium is known as ''The Cornwall Playhouse'' and opened in 2021. Beginning in 2022, following the refurbishment of the hall, work began on the clock tower: the clock and bells were removed, and were serviced and repaired while the tower itself was dismantled and rebuilt; the reconditioned bells and clock were returned to the tower in 2023.


See also

* Grade II* listed buildings in Cornwall


References


External links

{{Commons category
Official site
Government buildings completed in 1846 City and town halls in Cornwall Truro Grade II* listed buildings in Cornwall Entertainment in Cornwall Theatres in Cornwall 1846 establishments in England Grade II* listed government buildings Grade II* listed theatres