Trowbridge Town Hall is a municipal building in Market Street,

Trowbridge Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England; situated on the River Biss in the west of the county, close to the border with Somerset. The town lies south-east of Bath, Somerset, Bath, south-west of Swindon and south-east of Brist ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of Trowbridge Urban District 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

After significant population growth, largely associated with the cloth industry, a

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 ...

was established in Trowbridge in 1864. In the 1880s, the local board decided that the town needed a municipal building, and a wealthy cloth merchant, Sir William Roger Brown, offered to pay for it to celebrate the

Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria The Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated on 20 and 21 June 1887 to mark the Golden jubilee, 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession on 20 June 1837. It was celebrated with a National service of thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Serv ...

. The site the board acquired was then occupied by a large private house known as "The Limes". The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Mrs Brown on 21 June 1887,Plaque on the left of the doorway to the town hall when she declared: The new building was designed by Alfred Samuel Goodridge of

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

in the Jacobethan style, 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 at a cost of £20,000, and was opened by the Duchess of Albany on 14 June 1889. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Market Street; the central bay featured an arched doorway flanked by

brackets A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

supporting a

balustrade A baluster () is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its ...

; there was a pair of

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 first floor and a tall

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 ...

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 ...

with a spire above. (The clock, of 1888, was provided by J. W. Benson Ltd.) In the left hand bay there was a giant round headed window with

tracery Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone ''bars'' or ''ribs'' of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support th ...

on the first floor and a shaped

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

above, while to the right there was a large

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...

with a shaped gable above. Internally, the principal rooms were the courtroom, which was used as a venue for

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...

s, the council chamber and the ballroom. The building was also equipped with police cells for people facing trial and an area to the rear of the town hall was landscaped to create a "Sensory Garden". On 6 August 1889, soon after the creation of

Wiltshire County Council Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters at County Hall in Trowbridge. Since 2009 it has bee ...

, one of its earliest meetings took place at Trowbridge Town Hall. In 1894, the parish of Trowbridge became an urban district, with the town hall as its headquarters, and in November 1917

King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. George was born during the reign of his pa ...

and Queen Mary visited the town hall on a visit to the area. The ballroom was used for local dances and musical events, and in the 1960s performers appearing there included the rock bands Rod Stewart and the Soul Agents, in December 1964,

The Who The Who are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup (1964–1978) consisted of lead vocalist Roger Daltrey, guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon. Considered one of th ...

, in April 1965, and

Small Faces Small Faces were an English Rock music, rock band from London, founded in 1965. The group originally consisted of Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Jimmy Winston, with Ian McLagan replacing Winston as the band's keyboardist in 1966 ...

in August 1965. The building continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged West Wiltshire District Council was formed in new offices at Bradley Road in 1974. After 1974, the town hall belonged to West Wiltshire District Council, and then from 2009 to its successor

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire (district), Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters a ...

, which considered disposing of it. It continued to be used as a magistrates' court until 2003 and was also used as the venue for coroners' inquests into the deaths of military personnel.

21st century

In 2011, a group of residents formed the Trowbridge Town Hall Trust to help restore the building, and since then it has been used for exhibitions and community events. As of 2023–2024, work is underway to restore the structure and remodel the interior, with funding from the UK Government's Future High Streets fund. Once the works are complete, the Town Hall Trust will have a long lease of the building. Works of art in the town hall include a bust by Edward Sheppard depicting the benefactor, Sir William Roger Brown, as well as portrait of him by an unknown artist.

References

{{Reflist Government buildings completed in 1889 City and town halls in Wiltshire

Town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

Grade II listed buildings in Wiltshire Grade II listed government buildings