Henley Town Hall

Henley Town Hall
Henley Town Hall
Location	Market Square, Henley-on-Thames
Coordinates	51°32′15″N0°54′23″W / 51.5374°N 0.9063°W / 51.5374; -0.9063
Built	1901
Architect	Henry Hare
Architectural style(s)	Baroque style
Listed Building – Grade II*
Official name	Town Hall
Designated	25 January 1951
Reference no.	1047802
Shown in Oxfordshire

Henley Town Hall is a municipal structure in the Market Place in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Henley Town Council, is a Grade II* listed building. ^[1]

History

The main staircase

The first municipal building in the town was a medieval guildhall on the south side of Hart Street which was completed in the late 13th century. ^[2] This was replaced by a second structure in 1492: this building, which was a timber-framed building in the Middle Row of the Market Place just to the west of the junction with Bell Street and Duke Street, was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, and it had an assembly room on the first floor. ^{[2] [3]}

A third and more substantial town hall was designed in the neoclassical style by local architect, Henry Bradshaw, with some ideas from Field Marshal Henry Conway: the building, which featured a full-height portico, was built in red brick on a site to the west of the second town hall. It was also arcaded on the ground floor with an assembly room on the first floor and was completed in December 1796. ^[2] There was a village lock-up for petty criminals in the basement. ^[4] The town hall became the regular venue for the draw to determine qualifying teams for the annual Henley Royal Regatta when the event first took place in summer 1839. ^[5] Its borough council, which had met in the assembly room, was reformed under the Municipal Corporations Act 1883. ^[6]

In the late 19th century, after the previous town hall was deemed too small, civic leaders decided to demolish it and build a fourth structure on the same site as the third one, as a lasting memorial to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. ^[2] The new building was designed by Henry Hare in the Baroque style, built in red brick with stone dressings by Messrs. McCarthy E. Fitt of Reading at a cost of £5,895 and was officially opened by the local member of parliament, Robert Hermon-Hodge, on 13 March 1901. ^{[7] [8]}

The design involved a symmetrical main frontage facing east onto the Market Square; the central section, which slightly projected forward, featured a short flight of steps leading up to a doorway with an arched stone surround. There was a Venetian window on the first floor flanked by two pairs of Ionic order pilasters supporting an architrave and a large pediment with a carved coat of arms in the tympanum. ^[1] At roof level there was a cupola with a gold ball and a weather vane. ^[1] Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber on the ground floor and the main hall on the first floor. ^[2] The ground floor contained an additional pair of large formal rooms, one of which served as the Mayor's Parlour, the other as a committee room. ^[7] The basement storey was largely taken up by a drill hall, and also contained office rooms for the Town Clerk, Borough Surveyor and other council officials. ^[7] The original iron gates to the building were replaced by wooden doors in 1909; ^[9] the gates were given to Holy Trinity Church. ^[7]

During the First World War, the town hall was used as a Red Cross Voluntary Aid Detachment auxiliary hospital. ^[10] Tablets commemorating the lives of service personnel who had died in the First World War were erected on either side of the main doorway in the early 1920s. ^{[11] [12] [13]} Additional names were added at the bottom of the tablets after the Second World War. ^{[11] [12] [13]} The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Henley-on-Thames Borough Council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Wallingford District Council was formed in 1974. ^[14] The building place subsequently became the meeting place of Henley-on-Thames Town Council. ^[15]

Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by Godfrey Kneller of King George I, ^[16] a portrait after Anthony van Dyck of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud, ^[17] and a portrait by an unknown artist of the former Lord Chancellor, Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield. ^[18]

See also

• Grade II* listed buildings in South Oxfordshire

References

1. Historic England. "Town Hall (1047802)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 26 April 2021.
2. Townley, Simon (2011). "'Henley: Town Buildings', in A History of the County of Oxford". Woodbridge, Suffolk: British History Online. pp. 49–72. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
3. "Town Hall and Guildhall". Victoria County History. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
4. "Henley Town Hall". Prison History. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
5. "Hall packed for draw". Henley Standard. 2 July 2019. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
6. Municipal Corporations Act 1883 (46 & 46 Vict. Ch. 18) (PDF). 1883. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
7. "Henley-on-Thames Town Hall" (PDF). Henley Archaeological and Historical Group. 1975. p. 21. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
8. Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 638. ISBN   0-14-071045-0.
9. Ellis, Sian (1992). Around Henley-on-Thames on Old Photographs. Sutton Publishing. p. 29. ISBN   978-0750902717.
10. "List of auxiliary hospitals in the UK during the First World War" (PDF). British Red Cross. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
11. "Borough of Henley-on-Thames Memorial Tablets". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
12. "Henley-on-Thames". Roll of Honour. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
13. "Henley-on-Thames". War Memorials Online. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
14. Local Government Act 1972. 1972 c.70. The Stationery Office Ltd. 1997. ISBN   0-10-547072-4.
15. "Full Council Meeting". Henley-on-Thames Town Council. 18 February 2020. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
16. Kneller, Godfrey. "George I (1660–1727)". Art UK. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
17. van Dyck, Anthony. "William Laud (1573–1645), Archbishop of Canterbury". Art UK. Retrieved 26 April 2021.
18. "Thomas Parker, Earl of Macclesfield, Lord High Chancellor and Steward of the Corporation of Henley-on-Thames". Art UK. Retrieved 26 April 2021.