Description

TORQUAY

SX9163 UNION STREET
885-1/17/289 Old Town Hall
10/01/75

GV II

Old Town Hall. 1851-2 to the designs of Mr Dixon, the town
surveyor. Local grey Torquay limestone, brought to course,
with rock-faced quoins and Bathstone dressings; main roofs
concealed behind parapets, tiled hipped roof to tower; stacks
with stone shafts. Italianate style.
PLAN: On a wedge-shaped site between Abbey Road and Union
Street with entrances both sides. 3-stage clock tower facing
down Fleet Street.
EXTERIOR: 2 and 3 storeys. Principal 3-bay elevation to Union
Street plus one bay to tower to left. Stone eaves brackets to
cornice with parapet. Moulded string to first floor; platband
to second floor. Centre bay broken forward and pedimented.
Segmental-headed doorways to each bay on the ground floor. 3
first-floor windows with stone architraves, pediments on
consoles and balustrades below the sill, centre window
tripartite. 3 first-floor windows with stone architraves and
consoles. 2-storey block to left with balustrade with
round-headed arcade. 1:3:1-bay rear (Abbey Road) elevation in
similar but plainer style. Dramatic 3-stage Italianate clock
tower with shallow hipped roof with moulded projecting eaves
on stone brackets; string courses. One-light and paired
round-headed windows with stone architraves; doorway on Abbey
Road side; oculus on Fleet Street side; clock faces in stone
frames. Blue tiled Abbey Road street sign with white letters
fixed to building.
INTERIOR: Partly disused. Rear section in use as restaurant;
historic features either removed or concealed. Very prominent
position and one of the earliest examples in Torquay of the
use of the Italianate tower, used later on many of the larger
1860s and 1870s villas.
(Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Cherry B: Devon: London:
1952-1989: P.858).

Listing NGR: SX9168663938

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Old Town Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26579693

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

• 
  Hampshire: South (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)