Town Hall With Attached Railings

Details

BURNLEY

SD8332SE MANCHESTER ROAD 906-1/19/96 (West side) 29/09/77 Town Hall with attached railings

GV II

Town hall with police station, Magistrate's Court and public baths; the police station and court now used for storage and the baths demolished 1975. 1884-8. By Holtom & Fox of Dewsbury. Sandstone ashlar (rear wings of coursed sandstone rubble), with slate roofs and copper-clad dome. Renaissance style. Large irregular rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys over basements, plus a central turret, 1:3:1:3:1 windows, symmetrical, the centre and ends projected; with channelled rustication to the basement and ground floor, a plain frieze and a cornice over each floor (that at 1st floor dentilled and that at 2nd floor modillioned), balustraded parapets and a domed clock turret over the centre (similar turrets designed for the ends were not built). The centre has a raised entrance with set-in Ionic columns of polished pink granite which have sandstone capitals, flanking a richly-carved round-headed archway with set-in Ionic colonnettes and elaborate wrought-iron gates; a segmental balustraded balcony at 1st floor with hexastyle composite columns (paired and single) and a round-headed inner doorway with French windows; a simpler and shorter feature at 2nd floor with tetrastyle Tuscan columns flanked by carved cartouches; a carved pediment and triangular parapet with roundels; and on the roof a clock turret with chamfered corners, a frieze enriched with festoons, a moulded cornice and a clock-stage with large circular clock-faces and a copper dome with a wooden domical finial. The projected end bays have (inter alia) 1st-floor balconies with balustrades and composite-columned architraves which have carved segmental pediments, flanked by short coved niches, and pilastered 2nd floor windows with eared architraves flanked by similar niches. The 3-bay intermediate ranges have recessed square-headed windows at ground floor, colonnades of composite semi-columns at 1st floor containing tall round-headed windows with balustrades, shorter square-headed windows with pilasters and balustrades at 2nd floor. INTERIOR: entrance lobby with wooden former enquiry kiosk on left side; entrance hall at ground floor and concourse area of civic suite at 1st floor with original mosaic floors by Maw & Co. of Shropshire, dados of glazed tile in buff and green with brown and red bands, large windows of stained and painted

glass, Tuscan columns at ground floor and Ionic columns at 1st floor; open-well stone staircase with cast-iron newels and foliated wrought-iron balustrading; elaborately carved architraves to doorways. Council chamber has very fine coved and coffered ceiling, the panels of the coving filled with coats of arms of principal Lancashire towns, and a painted lettered frieze carried round the whole room recording the principal dates of Burnley's civic history (beginning with "1293-4 first charter for market and fair...1846 waterworks acquired..." and ending "1901 tramways acquired"); but wall cladding and furnishings altered. Mayor's Parlour, Reception Room retain original panelling, doors, fireplaces, moulded plaster cornices and ceilings. Former magistrates' court to rear (latterly used as club room) now lacks all furnishings and fittings except panelled reredos to Bench and coved ceiling with large rectangular skylight. Original police cells survive on floor below this (some unaltered). SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the entrance steps are protected by convex balustrades, from each of which run elaborate wrought-iron railings protecting the basement area. Forms group with Mechanics building adjoining to the right (qv).





Listing NGR: SD8397032386

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