Slough Town Hall is a former municipal building in Bath Road,

Slough Slough () is a town in Berkshire, England, in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, M40 and M25 motorways. It is part of the historic county of Buckinghamshire. In 2021, the ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; abbreviated ), officially the Royal County of Berkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Oxfordshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the north-east, Greater London ...

, England. The town hall was the headquarters of

Slough Borough Council Slough Borough Council is the local authority for the Borough of Slough in Berkshire, England. Slough has had an elected council since 1863, which has been reformed several times. Since 1998 the council has been a unitary authority, being a di ...

until 2011. The building has been used as a school since 2012.

History

From 1909 until 1937, Slough Urban District Council was based at a converted house called "The Cedars" at 4 William Street. Following significant population growth, largely associated with the development of the local

industrial estate An industrial park, also known as industrial estate or trading estate, is an area zoned and planned for the purpose of industrial development. An industrial park can be thought of as a more heavyweight version of a business park or office par ...

by The Slough Trading Co., civic leaders decided to procure a purpose-built town hall: the site they selected was open land on the south side of Bath Road situated among a row of large residential properties. The chosen site was relatively detached from the town centre, being west of the main shopping areas on High Street. The project was the subject of a design competition assessed by

Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel Harry Stuart Goodhart-Rendel (1887 in Cambridge – 21 June 1959 in Westminster, London) was a British architect, writer and musician. Life Harry Stuart Goodhart was born on 29 May 1887 in Cambridge, England. He added the additional name Rende ...

and won by Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce. The new building was designed in the Neo-Georgian style, built in red brick with stone dressings and completed in 1937. The building was officially opened on 31 March 1937 by Sarah Trevener, wife of the chairman of the urban district council, Arthur George Trevener. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with fifteen bays facing onto Bath Road; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured a doorway flanked by stone

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 words "Town Hall". There were three tall windows with stone surrounds and iron

balconies A balcony (from , "scaffold") is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartme ...

on the first floor, five small square windows on the second floor and a large pediment containing 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 ...

in the tympanum: there was a clock tower with a

belfry The belfry /ˈbɛlfri/ is a structure enclosing bells for ringing as part of a building, usually as part of a bell tower or steeple. It can also refer to the entire tower or building, particularly in continental Europe for such a tower attached ...

and

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 ...

at roof level. To the left there was a wing of ten bays with the end bay projected forward as a

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

but to the right there was wing of just two bays suggesting that the architects had identified this area for future expansion. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber which benefited from fine

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

and

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

panelling. Following further industrial development the area was advanced to the status of

municipal borough A municipal borough was a type of local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of governance or public administration within a particular sovereign state. Local governments typically constitute a subdivision of ...

with the town hall as its headquarters in 1938. Although highly critical of what he perceived as the overdevelopment of Slough, the future Poet Laureate,

Sir John Betjeman Sir John Betjeman, (; 28 August 190619 May 1984) was an English poet, writer, and broadcaster. He was Poet Laureate from 1972 until his death. He was a founding member of The Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architect ...

, described the architecture of the building favourably, as "a striving for unity out of chaos". The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the local borough council for the rest of the 20th century and remained the local seat of government after the enlarged Slough District Council was formed in 1974. Councillor Lydia Simmons became the UK's first black mayor at the town hall in May 1984. However, in 2008, the

, which had become the

unitary authority A unitary authority is a type of local government, local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are ...

for the area in 1997, decided to close the town hall and to temporarily relocate its staff to a nearby office building at St Martin's Place, 51 Bath Road, pending a more permanent home for the council being found closer to the town centre. The council proposed that, in order to maximise the value of the site, the town hall should be demolished and site used for residential development.

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, a battlefield, medieval castles, Roman forts, historic industrial sites, Lis ...

recommended that the building be included, as a

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 ...

, on the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

but, in February 2010, the

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It holds the responsibility for culture and sport, and some aspects of the media throughout the UK, such as broadcasting. I ...

decided to disregard the advice and ruled that the building should not be listed.

The Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (abbreviated to C20), founded in 1979 as The Thirties Society, is a British charity that campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. It is formally recognised as one of the National ...

unsuccessfully tried to have that decision overturned, saying that it believed that "the redevelopment of the town hall would be an act of vandalism to the civic centre". The council held its last meeting in the town hall on 19 December 2011. Although the building had not been listed, it was decided not to demolish it after all. The town hall building was subsequently refurbished at a cost of £1.5 million and was re-opened as a primary school in 2012, with the building now being called Old Town Hall, 19 Bath Road. Slough Borough Council later acquired Observatory House at 25 Windsor Road in 2018 to become its new headquarters in the town centre.

References

{{reflist Government buildings completed in 1937 City and town halls in Berkshire Buildings and structures in Slough