Royton Town Hall is a municipal building in Rochdale Road,

Royton Royton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 21,284 in 2011. Close to the source of the River Irk, near undulating land at the foothills of the South Pennines, it is northwest of Ol ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Derbyshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Cheshire to the south, and Merseyside to the west. Its largest settlement is the city of Manchester. ...

, England. The town hall was the headquarters of Royton Urban District Council.

History

After population growth associated with the increasing number of

cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven ...

s in the town, the

local board of health A local board of health (or simply a ''local board'') was a local authority in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulat ...

, which had been formed in 1863, decided to procure municipal offices for the area: the site they selected on Rochdale Road had previously formed part of Royton Hall Park. The new building, which was designed in the Victorian style, was built in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £7,000 and was officially opened by the first chairman of local board of health, James Ashworth, in September 1880. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Rochdale Road; the central bay, which was built of stone and slightly projected forward, featured a round headed doorway on the ground floor flanked by

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

bearing the town's

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 ...

; there was an eight-light window on the first floor and a pediment above with a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure that 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 building ...

at roof level. The other bays contained

mullion A mullion is a vertical element that forms a division between units of a window or screen, or is used decoratively. It is also often used as a division between double doors. When dividing adjacent window units its primary purpose is a rigid sup ...

windows on the ground floor and round headed windows on the first floor. The clock, which was designed and manufactured by

Gillett and Bland Gillett & Johnston was a clockmaker and bell foundry based in Croydon, England from 1844 until 1957. Between 1844 and 1950, over 14,000 tower clocks were made at the works. The company's most successful and prominent period of activity as a bel ...

, and the bell were a gift from Dr and Mrs John Kershaw, who also financed the local cottage hospital. The clock tower was inscribed on three sides with

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

mottos: "Tempus Fugit" (time flies), "Sic Labitur Aetas" (so the years pass by) and "Finem Respice" (have regards to the end). The clock face on the east side, which faced

Shaw and Crompton Shaw and Crompton is a civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, Greater Manchester, England, and lies on the River Beal at the foothills of the South Pennines. It is located north of Oldham, south-east of Rochdale and north- ...

, was designed so as to be much smaller than the ones on the other three sides. When the Church of Holy Trinity at Shaw was constructed in 1869, it had no clock on the western facade of its clock tower, which faced Royton. According to the Royton Local History Society, a local story emerged that the reduced clock face size on the town hall was retaliation against the design of the church at Shaw. On 26 November 1884, a gangmaster, who was protesting at those provisions of the

Factory Acts The Factory Acts were a series of acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom beginning in 1802 to regulate and improve the conditions of industrial employment. The early acts concentrated on regulating the hours of work and moral wel ...

that prohibited children under 10 years old from working in mills, placed a gunpowder-based explosive device in a cellar underneath the town hall. The device detonated and, although there were no casualties, windows and doors were blown off. The building became the headquarters of Royton Urban District Council when it was formed in 1894. The building continued to serve as a meeting place for Royton Urban District Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged

Oldham Council Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, also known as Oldham Council, is the Local government in England, local authority of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham in Greater Manchester, England. It is a metropolitan borough council and provides the ma ...

was formed in 1974. Since then, apart from some space used by the council's local district team and some space leased out to

Greater Manchester Police Greater Manchester Police (GMP) is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement within the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester in North West England. , Greater Manchester Police employed 6,866 police officers, 3,524 memb ...

, the building has been empty and deteriorating. In September 2017, Oldham Council announced plans to refurbish the town hall: the proposed works involved moving the library from an adjacent building into the ground floor of the town hall. Then, in January 2020, council sought bidders for the contract, which was estimated to be worth £2.4 million, to carry out the works.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1880 City and town halls in Greater Manchester