| Bishop Auckland Town Hall | |
|---|---|
 Bishop Auckland Town Hall | |
| Location | Market Place, Bishop Auckland |
| Coordinates | 54°39′57″N1°40′25″W / 54.6659°N 1.6735°W |
| Built | 1862 |
| Architect | John Philpott Jones |
| Architectural style(s) | Gothic Revival style |
| Website | www |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Designated | 20 September 1972 |
| Reference no. | 1297550 |
  Shown in County Durham | |
Bishop Auckland Town Hall is a municipal facility in the Market Place, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham, England. It is a Grade II* listed building. [1]
The building, which was designed by John Philpott Jones in the Gothic Revival style for the Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Market Company, was financed by private issue of shares and officially opened on 28 October 1862. [2] When it opened facilities included a large lecture hall capable of accommodating 800 people and a temperance hotel. [2] The building held a prominent position in the town and dominated the area with its strong mansard pavilions, spires and associated ironwork. [3] The mansard pavilions were an unusual feature imported from France which were copied a few years later by Bellamy and Hardy in their design for Retford Town Hall. [4]
The building was acquired by the local board of health in 1888 and it became the headquarters of Bishop Auckland Urban District council in 1894. [1] [2] Sir Edward Elgar visited the building on 2 December 1919 and conducted the Leeds Symphony Orchestra playing a series of pieces of his own work. [2]
After Bishop Auckland Urban District Council was abolished in 1974, the building was abandoned and then condemned for demolition in the 1980s; however, after a local campaign to save the building, it was fully restored in the early 1990s. [5] The works included the conversion of the main assembly hall into a facility known as the Eden Theatre [6] to commemorate a previous theatre of that name in Newgate Street which had been demolished in 1974. [7] The changes also introduced a new public library, an art gallery, a tourist information centre and a café. [8] The complex was officially re-opened in September 1993 [6] and the restoration in the complex was recognised with a Civic Trust Award in 1995. [9]
The art gallery went on to hold three exhibitions for mining artist Tom Lamb. The first was held in 1999 for his "Fading Memories" exhibition, then in 2004 for Lamb's "The Footprints Of My Years" exhibition and in 2008 the last exhibition called "My Mining Days" was held. [10]
The building closed for a further refurbishment involving a new layout to the art gallery and expected to cost £1.9 million in September 2019. [11] [12]
Barnard Castle is a market town on the north bank of the River Tees, in County Durham, England. The town is named after and built around a medieval castle ruin. The town's Bowes Museum's has an 18th-century Silver Swan automaton exhibit and paintings by Goya and El Greco.
Darlington is a market and industrial town in County Durham, England. It is the main administrative centre of the unitary authority Borough of Darlington. The borough is a constituent member of the devolved Tees Valley area.
Bishop Auckland is a market town and civil parish at the confluence of the River Wear and the River Gaunless in County Durham, England. It is 12 miles (19 km) northwest of Darlington and 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Durham.
Retford, also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfield Canal passes through its centre. Retford is 26 miles (42 km) east of Sheffield, 23 miles (37 km) west of Lincoln and 31 miles (50 km) north-east of Nottingham. The population at the 2021 census was 23,740.
County Durham, officially simply Durham (/ˈdʌrəm/), is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington, and the county town is the city of Durham.
Peterlee is a town in County Durham, England. It lies between Sunderland to the north, Hartlepool to the south, the Durham Coast to the east and Durham to the west. It gained town status in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946. The act also created the nearby settlement of Newton Aycliffe and later Washington, Tyne and Wear.
The London Pavilion is a building on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue and Coventry Street on the north-east side of Piccadilly Circus in London. It is currently a shopping arcade and part of the Trocadero Centre.
Queen Street is the major commercial thoroughfare in the Auckland CBD, Auckland, New Zealand's main population centre. The northern end is at Queens Wharf on the Auckland waterfront, adjacent to the Britomart Transport Centre and the Downtown Ferry Terminal. The road is close to straight, the southern end being almost three kilometres away in a south-southwesterly direction on the Karangahape Road ridge, close to the residential suburbs in the interior of the Auckland isthmus.
Auckland Castle, which is also known as Auckland Palace and to people that live locally as the Bishop's Castle or Bishop's Palace, is located in the town of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England. In 1832, this castle replaced Durham Castle as the official residence of the Bishops of Durham. It is now a tourist attraction, but still houses the Bishop's offices; the Castle is a Grade I listed building.
Municipal Buildings is a former council office building that has been converted into a hotel. It is located on Dale Street in the centre of Liverpool, England. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Glen Eden is a suburb of West Auckland, New Zealand, located at the foothills of Waitākere Ranges. Originally known as Waikumete, the suburb gained the name Glen Eden in 1921. The suburb is in the Waitākere Ward, one of the thirteen administrative areas of Auckland governed by Auckland Council.
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is the principal public gallery in Auckland, New Zealand. It has the most extensive collection of national and international art in New Zealand and frequently hosts travelling international exhibitions.
Ivon Hitchens was an English painter who started exhibiting during the 1920s. He became part of the 'London Group' of artists and exhibited with them during the 1930s. His house was bombed in 1940 during World War II. Hitchens and his family abandoned London for the Sussex countryside, where he acquired a small area of woodland on Lavington Common, and lived there in a caravan, which he gradually augmented with a series of buildings. It was here that the artist further developed his fascination with the woodland subject matter, and this pre-occupation continued until the artist's death in 1979.
The Fruitmarket Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Edinburgh, Scotland.
John Francis Daly-Peoples is a New Zealand arts critic and correspondent. He is the arts writer The New Zealand Arts Review (www.nzartsreview.org) and previously arts writer for the weekly financial journal, National Business Review'(1989 - 2019)'.
Robert "Bob" Olley is an artist and sculptor best known for his mining subjects, humorous drawings and paintings of everyday life, especially his iconic painting and internationally acclaimed Westoe Netty.
Hartlepool Art Gallery is an art gallery in Hartlepool, County Durham, England.
Thomas Coutts Lamb was a British coal miner and artist in the North East of England.
Retford Town Hall is a municipal building in The Square, Retford, Nottinghamshire, England. The town hall, which was the meeting place of Retford Borough Council, is a grade II listed building.
The Playhouse Theatre is a performing arts centre situated in Glen Eden, New Zealand. The building was constructed in 1937 following a fire that destroyed the Glen Eden Town Hall that was on the site at the time. The Theatre has continued to serve West Auckland, initially for civic and community functions and events, moving into cinema and theatre productions by the 1970s when the name of the building officially changed to The Playhouse Theatre. Various theatre groups that had used the venue eventually amalgamated as the Waitakere Playhouse Theatre Trust in 1997. After considerable fundraising, the building was upgraded and in 2003 reopened as a modern performing arts facility.