Stokesley Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Place in

Stokesley Stokesley is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. It lies within the Historic counties of England, historic county boundaries of the North Riding of Yorkshire, on the River Leven, North Yorkshire, River Leven. An Wards and ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England. The structure, which accommodates the offices and meeting place of Stokesley 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 Stokesley was a

tollbooth A tollbooth (or toll booth) is an enclosure placed along a toll road that is used for the purpose of collecting a Toll (fee), toll from passing traffic. A structure consisting of several tollbooths placed next to each other is called a toll p ...

in the Market Place which dated back at least to the early 18th century; it was primarily used as a venue for 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 ...

to hold manorial court hearings but it was also the place for the storage of a set of imperial measures, typically held by local authorities to ensure tradesmen comply with the

Weights and Measures Act 1824 Weights and Measures Acts are acts of the British Parliament determining the regulation of weights and measures. It also refers to similar royal and parliamentary acts of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland and the medieval Welsh states. ...

. By the mid-19th century the building was in a dilapidated state and the then lord of the manor, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Hildyard of Stokesley Manor, decided to replace it with a more substantial structure. The new building was designed in the

Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Ita ...

, built in

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 1853. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the Market Place; the central bay featured a recessed doorway with a rectangular

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

. The other bays on the ground floor were fenestrated with square

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, while the bays on the first floor were fenestrated with tall sash windows 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

window sill A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place. The ...

s. The building was originally arcaded at the back so that butter markets could be held and, at roof level, there was a heavily

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a Cornice (architecture), cornice which helps to support them. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally transl ...

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor where a portrait of Hildyard was hung on the wall; there was also a reading room, a library for the local

mechanics institute Mechanics' institutes, also known as mechanics' institutions, sometimes simply known as institutes, and also called schools of arts (especially in the Australian colonies), were educational establishments originally formed to provide adult ed ...

and a branch of the Langbaurgh West Savings Bank as well as a dispensary. The architectural historian,

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

, was critical of the design and described the structure as having "no fancies at all". In the 19th century the assembly room was used for

magistrates' court A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several Jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings. Courts * Magistrates' court (England and Wales) ...

and county court hearings. It was also the venue for a celebratory dinner for 200 people in March 1857 when the North Yorkshire and Cleveland Railway reached Stokesley and the local railway station started accepting rail passengers. The building was transferred to the ownership of the local parish council under an

indenture An indenture is a legal contract that reflects an agreement between two parties. Although the term is most familiarly used to refer to a labor contract between an employer and a laborer with an indentured servant status, historically indentures we ...

dated 1919. A developer offered to acquire the building, demolish it and redevelop the site for retail use in 1965 but the parish council unanimously rejected the proposal. Following local government reorganisation in 1974, it went on to accommodate the offices and meeting place of Stokesley Town Council. A major programme of refurbishment works costing £280,000, which included the installation of a lift, was completed with financial support from

Biffa Biffa Limited is a waste management company headquartered in High Wycombe, England. It provides collection, landfill, recycling and special waste services to local authorities and industrial and commercial clients in the United Kingdom. , it wa ...

and local charities, in October 2003.

References

{{Reflist Government buildings completed in 1853 City and town halls in North Yorkshire Stokesley Grade II listed buildings in North Yorkshire