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

Slough Slough () is a town and unparished area in the unitary authority of the same name in Berkshire, England, bordering west London. It lies in the Thames Valley, west of central London and north-east of Reading, at the intersection of the M4, ...

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Be ...

, 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 is a unitary authority, having the powers of a county and district council combined. Berkshire is purely a ceremonial county, with no adminis ...

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, 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 park, ...

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 Charles Holloway James, , (1893–1953), architect, specialised in designs for homes and housing projects, but also completed large public works, particularly in collaboration with Stephen Rowland Pierce. Early life James was born in 1893 at ...

and

Stephen Rowland Pierce Stephen Rowland Pierce F.R.I.B.A, F.S.A. (1896–1966) was an architect and town planning consultant. In partnership with Charles Holloway James he designed several large British public buildings, including Norwich City Hall. In 1921, Pierce wo ...

. 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 classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

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 it, balcone, "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. Types The traditional Maltese balcony is ...

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 heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...

in the tympanum: there was a clock tower with a belfry and

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) 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 of a dome, spire, t ...

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 tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...

and

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of a drupe of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. Although culinarily considered a "nut" and used as such, it is not a tru ...

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

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in ...

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 A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

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 architectu ...

, 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 Lydia Emelda Simmons is a Labour Party local politician in Slough, Berkshire, England who was active between 1979 and 2007. She has the distinction of being the first black person, as well as specifically the first Afro-Caribbean woman, to bec ...

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 local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governme ...

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, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

recommended that the building be included, as a

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

, 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, a ...

but, in February 2010, the

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport , type = Department , logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gove ...

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

The Twentieth Century Society The Twentieth Century Society (C20) is a British charity which campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage from 1914 onwards. The society's interests embrace buildings and artefacts that characterise 20th-century Britain. It is form ...

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 Observatory House was the name of an 18th century observatory established by William and Caroline Herschel in Windsor Street, Slough. After the original building had been demolished, the name was re-applied to a modern office block on the same s ...

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