Larne Town Hall | |
---|---|
Location | Upper Cross Street, Larne |
Coordinates | 54°51′06″N5°49′18″W / 54.8516°N 5.8216°W |
Built | 1870 |
Architect | Alexander Tate |
Architectural style(s) | Gothic Revival style |
Listed Building – Grade B+ | |
Official name | Town Hall |
Designated | 25 June 1979 |
Reference no. | HB 06/12/002 |
Larne Town Hall is a municipal structure in Upper Cross Street in Larne, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The structure, which was the meeting place of Larne Borough Council, is a Grade B+ listed building. [1]
The town hall was financed by a donation by the Ulster-Scots merchant, Charles McGarel. [1] It was designed by Alexander Tate in the Gothic Revival style, built Stewart & Company of Belfast in rubble masonry at a cost of £5,500 and was officially opened on 25 August 1870. [1] [2]
The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with eleven bays facing onto Upper Cross Street with the left hand end bay projected forward as a pavilion; the central bay featured a four-stage clock tower with an arched doorway flanked by colonettes in the first stage, a lancet window in the second stage, an oculus in the third stage and a belfry with a clock and a pyramidal roof in the fourth stage. [1] The left hand section featured six tall arched traceried windows on a single floor, while the right hand section was slightly set back and featured tall arched traceried windows on two floors. [1] The traceried windows in both sections took the form of pairs of lancet windows separated by colonettes. [1] The left hand end bay formed a caretaker's house. [3] Internally, the principal rooms were the assembly hall, known as the "McGarel Hall", in the left hand section, [4] the public reading room on the ground floor of the right hand section and the library and museum on the first floor of the right hand section. [3]
The town was advanced to the status of municipal borough, with the town hall as its headquarters, in 1938. [5] It also became a significant events venue and performers included the singer, Bridie Gallagher, in 1949, [6] but it ceased to be the local seat of government when the council relocated to the Sir Thomas Dixon Buildings in the early 1960s. [7] An extensive programme of refurbishment works, as well as the demolition of an existing annex and the construction of a new three-storey extension, was carried out by Tracey Brothers and completed in 2012. [3] [8] After particularly bad winter storms in March 2013, the Prince of Wales visited the town hall in June 2013 and met with members of the farming community who had been adversely affected by the extreme weather. [9]
In June 2020, Amnesty International asked for the McGarel Hall to be renamed on the basis that, as a young man, McGarel had owned at least 1,000 slaves at a sugar plantation in Demerara in South America, and that part of his wealth had been generated from the compensation he had received for the loss of those slaves. [10] [11] Council officials said that they had no plans to change the name. [4]
Larne is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,853 at the 2021 census. It is a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. Together with parts of the neighbouring districts of Antrim and Newtownabbey and Causeway Coast and Glens, it forms the East Antrim constituency for elections to the Westminster Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly. The civil parish is in the historic barony of Glenarm Upper.
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Charles McGarel (1788–1876) was an Ireland-born Ulster-Scots merchant and slave owner. In 1833, the British Government abolished slavery and compensated owners, such as McGarel, who became a major beneficiaries of this scheme. With his wealth he conducted business in the City of London, funded civic works in his home town of Larne, County Antrim and bought land and property in Ireland. Having no children, he left his estate to his brother-in-law, James Hogg, on condition that he integrate McGarel into his family name, becoming James McGarel-Hogg, later Lord Magheramorne.
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