Town Hall Including Attached Railings

Details

SE3406NW BARNSLEY CHURCH STREET SE3406SW (west side), Barnsley 8/10 Town Hall including 9/10 attached railings GV II Town Hall and attached railings. 1933 by Briggs and Thornely of Liverpool. Portland stone, brick infill panels at rear. Classical style. 3 storeys plus basement to front due to sloping ground. 21 bays by 10 bays with 2 internal courtyards. Symmetrical facade of 8, 5 and 8 bays. The central 5 bays break forward and are surmounted by a tall square tower. Rusticated ground floor with band above. Central square-headed portal with dentilled cornice surmounted by anthemion acroteria and a central cartouche with scroll support. Foundation tablets to each side. A giant, Corinthian distyle in antis loggia with clasping pilasters to each side on 1st and 2nd floors of the central 5 bays. 3 tall round-arched windows with glazing bars to the back wall. Iron balustrade. The single square-headed window to each side has a small cornice on console brackets and a large panel above. Windows to other bays are 20-pane casements, with 16 panes to the smaller 2nd-floor windows. Deep frieze and cornice and deep parapet which is balustraded over the central 3 bays. The 3-stage reducing square tower sits on a square base with corner urns. The 1st stage has a large niche to each face, and in each is set a square-headed window with fluted Doric colonnettes supporting a full entablature with urns. Below the niche on the facade side is a relief of the Barnsley County Borough coat of arms with its supporters: a miner and a glass-blower. Corner urns surmount the 1st stage. A clock face to each side of the 2nd stage which has a Doric entablature with anthemion acroteria. The final stage has a triple group of slender lights, a deep, swagged frieze with acroteria and stepped blocking courses. The rear elevation has 5 central bays with a 1st and 2nd floor giant order of square piers and pilasters with ornamental capitals. The centre 3 bays form a loggia whose lower part (lst floor) is infilled with tripled windows. Other windows are casements as before. The left and right return elevations have 8 central bays and wide corner bays which break forward slightly and are framed at lst- and 2nd-floor levels by giant fluted Corinthian pilasters. lst-floor windows to corner bays have cornices, the rest are 16 and 20-pane casements as before.

Interior: entrance hall with good central staircase with decorative cast-iron balustrade and bronze handrail and newels. Dentilled plaster friezes, decorated with anthemion. Glazed dome over stairwell. Terrazzo fluted piers. The Council chamber has walnut panels and fluted Corinthian pilasters, original fittings and good detailing.

Attached railings: square, Portland stone panelled piers, dwarf wall and heavy cast-iron railings are attached at front and continue around the building. Round, cast-iron fluted bars with square bosses, pineapple finials and round section rails. Two fluted, ornamental lamp standards with later lamp housings, to each side of entrance. The Town Hall was opened by H.R.H. Edward, Prince of Wales on l4th December 1933.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, 1967.

Listing NGR: SE3436506521

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

333696

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Radcliffe, E, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The West Riding, (1967)

End of official list entry

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