Description

SE4048 WETHERBY MARKET PLACE
LS22
5/17 Wetherby Town Hall and
attached front wall

GV II

Town hall, now assembly rooms, and attached front wall. 1845, C20
alterations. Deeply-coursed, dressed sandstone, Welsh slate roof. 2
storeys: T-shaped plan with 1:3:1-bay entrance front and taller 4 x 2-bay
range across rear. In Classical style with symmetrical front and rear
elevations. Entrance front: 1-storey porch with central projection has
double-door and margin-glazed overlight set between rusticated pilasters; set
back to each side are margin-glazed casements and matching corner pilasters;
entablature with plain frieze and pediment over the door. Side bays, set
back, have inserted windows with unequally-hung 8-pane sashes. 1st floor:
sill band to 3 sashes with glazing bars in ashlar surrounds to central bays
(central window wider); outer bays are blind, Modillioned wooden cornice
forms gutter and rises as pediment over centre with clock in arcaded ashlar
panel set in the tympanum. Apex stack with twin flues linked by a keyed
arch. Hipped roof. Flanking the entrance front are low quadrant walls with
end piers and massive copings. Rear: 4 bays; rock-faced and rusticated
quoins; sill band to C20 sashes with patterned glazing bars in reveals
(original window mullions removed). 1st floor: sill band to round-headed
sashes with glazing bars in recesses with corbels to an impost string course,
archivolts and large keystones. More massive eaves detailed as front; hipped
roof with ridge ventilators. Left return: end of taller range is as rear but
has clock in architrave to lst-floor centre. Altered ground-floor windows to
wing on right; blocked doorway; sash windows to 1st floor.
Interior: main, assembly room has coved ceiling and boss with acanthus and
palm-leaf motifs.
Built at a cost of £1,300 and served as county court, assembly room, reading
room and house of detention as well as accommodating the Church School. An
early drawing of the building shows a more delicate eaves detail (Unwin,
p.,107); early photographs of the building show the sashed mullioned windows
to rear and door flanked by small windows on the left return of the entrance
front (presumably the detention cell). Occupies an island site and forms the
focal point of the town.
R. Unwin, Wetherby, 1986, pp 106-108 and rear cover (aerial photo).

Listing NGR: SE4037648198

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wetherby Town Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q7990089

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.

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