Description

TOWCESTER WATLING STREET EAST
SP6948
13/158 No.86 (Town Hall)
19/08/76

GV II

Former Town Hall and corn exchange. 1865 by T.H. Vernon. Limestone ashlar,
banded with ironstone, hipped Welsh slate roof with ornamental ridge tiles and
wrought iron finials. Italianate style. 2 storeys and attic. 3-window range.
Complex plan. Central doorway with round-arched head, and keyblock on foliated
capitals with ears of wheat, flanked by pilasters with similar capitals
supporting console brackets bearing deep hood. Pair of 2-light windows to ground
floor with similar heads and capitals to middle piers, outer capitals with ivy
leafs; timber tracery. Smaller round-arched windows to first floor of 2 lights
to centre, 3 lights to left and right with pilasters outermost, red sandstone
columns innermost, stiff-leaf capitals and sash windows. Chamfered plinth, first
floor cornice, modiliioned eaves cornice, balustraded parapet and blank-arcaded
stone stacks to angles. Centre and ends project slightly, with pediment to
centre. Clock tower above with copper-clad belfry. 2-storey wing to rear right
of white brick in Flemish bond with segmental-arched sash windows and side door
with segmental-arched head with keyblock flanked by pilasters supporting
pediment. Bay with door is pedimented. Interior: fine hall with composite
pilasters, entablature with dentil cornice, coved arcaded vault to two sides
with ornamental glazing to round windows. South end wall has tall round-arched
panel with paterae to archivolt;2 small arches to north wall. Foundation stone
laid by the Earl of Pomfret, September 8th, 1865. The builder was J. Wheeler.
(Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.434).

Listing NGR: SP6935648651

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Town Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26652795

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)