Sandbach Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street in

Sandbach Sandbach (pronounced ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cheshire East borough of Cheshire, England. The civil parish contains four settlements: Sandbach, Elworth, Ettiley Heath and Wheelock, Cheshire, Wheelock. At the 2021 United Kingd ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...

, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Sandbach 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 town hall in Sandbach was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

structure located in the Market Square. On the High Street side, it was arcaded on the ground floor so that markets could be held, while on the Market Square side it had a

village lock-up A village lock-up is a historic building once used for the temporary detention of people in England and Wales, mostly where official prisons or criminal courts were beyond easy walking distance. Lockups were often used for the confinement of d ...

at one end and shops at the other end; there was an assembly hall on the first floor. The lawyer and author,

Thomas Hughes Thomas Hughes (20 October 1822 – 22 March 1896) was an English lawyer, judge, politician and author. He is most famous for his novel ''Tom Brown's School Days'' (1857), a semi-autobiographical work set at Rugby School, which Hughes had atte ...

, served as a judge at county court hearings in the building. The site for the current town hall, further to the northwest along the High Street, was donated by the

lord of the manor Lord of the manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England and Norman England, referred to the landholder of a historical rural estate. The titles date to the English Feudalism, feudal (specifically English feudal barony, baronial) system. The ...

, Lord Crewe: it had been occupied by a barber's shop and a private house. The foundation stone for the new building was laid on 2 July 1889. It was designed by Thomas Bower in the

Gothic Revival style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half of the 19th century ...

, built by John Stringer in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £5,000 and was officially opened by Lord Crewe on 28 October 1890. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto the High Street; the central section of four bays featured arches on the ground floor and three-light

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 ...

ed windows on the first floor. The left hand bay, which was slightly set back, featured mullioned and transomed windows on the ground and first floors with a gable above. The right hand bay featured a four-stage tower with an arch on the ground floor, a panel with the Crewe family

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 ...

flanked by statues on the first floor, a two-light mullioned window on the second 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 shaped stage with a clock on the third floor and a

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

al roof with a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

above. The statues, which were paid for by Lord Crewe, depicted, on the left, the

Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench The Lord or Lady Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary of England and Wales and the president of the courts of England and Wales. Until 2005 the lord chief justice was the second-most senior judge of the English and ...

, Sir Ranulph Crewe, and, on the right, the early Norman lord of the manor, Bigot de Loges, who was referred to in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. Internally, the principal room was the ballroom. The clock, a timepiece by A. & H. Rowley of

Theobalds Road Theobalds Road is a road in the Holborn district of London. It is named after Theobalds Palace because King James I used this route when going between there and London, travelling with his court and baggage of some 200 carts. For this reaso ...

, was given by a Mrs Jane Court in memory of her family. Following the completion of the new town hall, the old town hall was demolished in 1891. Sandbach had been made a

local government district Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Local'' (comics), a limited series comic book by Bria ...

in 1862, administered by a local board. Such districts were reconstituted as urban districts in 1894. The urban district council held its meetings in the town hall, although the town clerk was based in offices at 3 Crewe Road. Rallies were held at the town hall to identify potential recruits for the 15th and 16th (Service) Battalions of the

Cheshire Regiment The Cheshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Prince of Wales' Division. The 22nd Regiment of Foot was raised by the Henry Howard, 7th Duke of Norfolk in 1689 and was able to boast an independent existence ...

throughout 1915 during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and concerts and other events were held to raise funds for the Wings for Victory Week during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The town hall continued to be used as an events venue after the war and performers included the

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

and

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...

singer, Jimmy Powell, in April 1963. The town hall ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Congleton Borough Council was formed at Westfields in Middlewich Road in Sandbach in 1974. Sandbach Town Council took over the management of the building in 2012, and, following the completion of an extensive programme of refurbishment works which included improvements to the main frontage, the town hall was officially re-opened by the mayor, Councillor Mike Benson, on 19 February 2014. The

Mercian Regiment The Mercian Regiment (Cheshire, Worcesters and Foresters, and Staffords) is an infantry regiment of the British Army, which is recruited from five of the counties that formed the ancient kingdom of Mercia. Known as 'The Heart of England's Infant ...

received the Freedom of Sandbach at the town hall on 29 June 2014 and the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

programme ''

Any Questions? ''Any Questions?'' is a British topical discussion programme "in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media, and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience". It is typically broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Fridays at 20: ...

'' was broadcast from the town hall on 8 July 2016. In October 2020, Sandbach Town Council decided to move its main meeting place from the Sandbach Literary Institute to Sandbach Town Hall.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1890 City and town halls in Cheshire Listed buildings in Sandbach Grade II listed buildings in Cheshire

History

See also

References