Langport Town Hall
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Langport Town Hall is a municipal building in Bow Street in
Langport Langport is a town and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England, west of Somerton, Somerset, Somerton. The parish, which covers only part of the town, has a population of 3,578. Langport is contiguous with Huish Episcopi, ...
,
Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
, England. The building, which is the meeting place of Langport Town 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 Langport was a market hall at the junction between Bow Street and Cheapside which was erected in around 1563. The borough council briefly moved to former Chantry Chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("the Hanging Chapel") in the late 16th century only to move back again a few years later. By the mid-17th century the Bow Street building accommodated a jury chamber. In the early 1730s, the then-
portreeve A portreeve (, sometimes spelt Port-reeve) or port warden is the title of a historical official in England and Wales possessing authority (political, administrative, or fiscal) over a town. The details of the office have fluctuated and evolved co ...
offered the borough council a loan with which to re-build the building on the same site. The new structure was designed in the
neoclassical style Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...
, built in red brick and
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 was completed in 1732. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Bow Street; the ground floor, which was faced in ashlar stone featured three round headed openings with
keystones A keystone (or capstone) is the wedge-shaped stone at the apex of a masonry arch or typically round-shaped one at the apex of a vault. In both cases it is the final piece placed during construction and locks all the stones into position, allo ...
. The first floor was fenestrated with
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
architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...
s and keystones and, at roof level, there was a wooden bell
turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...
with a
finial A finial () or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a dome, spire, tower, roo ...
and a
weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...
. Internally, the principal rooms were the undercroft at the front of the building on the ground floor and the council chamber, which was also used as a courtroom, on the first floor. An
octagon In geometry, an octagon () is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, which alternates two types of edges. A truncated octagon, t is a ...
al projecting clock was installed on the front of the building in 1802 and a strong-room was added and the kitchen was improved in 1836.
Wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...
gates were fitted to the openings on the ground floor in 1840 and the projecting clock was replaced by a London-based clock-making business, J. W. Benson Limited, in 1883. Following the implementation of the
Municipal Corporations Act 1883 A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the gov ...
, which abolished the borough council, the council chamber became the meeting place of Langport Parish Council and also started operating as a community events venue. In 1888, the building was transferred to the ownership a new entity, the Langport Town Trust, the trustees of which undertook to maintain both the town hall and the Hanging Chapel into the future. The fire engine was moved to the town hall in 1925 and remained there until local fire services began to be provided from Somerton in 1939. A significant legacy from a former clerk to the parish council, William John Carne-Hill, was applied for the upkeep of the town hall from 1970 and, following local government re-organisation, the parish council was renamed Langport Town Council in 1974. The garden behind the town hall was landscaped with funding from
Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...
, in accordance with the conditions of the planning consent for a new retail store in the area, in 2002. It was renamed the Walter Bagehot Town Garden in 2012 to commemorate the life of the locally-born political journalist and constitutional historian,
Walter Bagehot Walter Bagehot ( ; 3 February 1826 – 24 March 1877) was an English journalist, businessman, and essayist, who wrote extensively about government, economics, literature and race. He is known for co-founding the ''National Review'' in 1855 ...
.


References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1732 City and town halls in Somerset Langport Grade II listed buildings in Somerset