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Worthing Town Hall

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Worthing Town Hall
Worthing Town Hall - geograph.org.uk - 1050232.jpg
Worthing Town Hall
LocationChapel Road, Worthing
Coordinates50°48′53″N 0°22′19″W / 50.8148°N 0.3719°W / 50.8148; -0.3719Coordinates: 50°48′53″N 0°22′19″W / 50.8148°N 0.3719°W / 50.8148; -0.3719
Built1931—1933
ArchitectCharles Cowles-Voysey
Architectural style(s)Neo-Georgian style
Listed Building – Grade II
Official nameWorthing Town Hall including Assembly Hall and Worthing Room
Designated19 January 1982
Reference no.1250786
Worthing Town Hall is located in West Sussex
Worthing Town Hall
Shown in West Sussex

Worthing Town Hall, or New Town Hall, is a municipal building in Chapel Road, Worthing, West Sussex, England. The town hall, which is a meeting place of Worthing Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building.[1] Located at Chapel Road in the centre of Worthing, it was opened in 1933 and built in a neo-Georgian style to designs by Charles Cowles-Voysey. Containing offices and a Council chamber it replaced Worthing's Old Town Hall as the administrative centre, a building that had been the home of Worthing's local authority from 1835 and was demolished in 1966. To the rear and west lies the Assembly Hall, built in 1935, also to designs by Cowles-Voysey. To the south lies the Worthing Museum and Art Gallery, originally built as a Carnegie Library.

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Worthing

Worthing

Worthing is a seaside town in West Sussex, England, at the foot of the South Downs, 10 miles (16 km) west of Brighton, and 18 miles (29 km) east of Chichester. With a population of 111,400 and an area of 12.5 square miles (32.4 km2), the borough is the second largest component of the Brighton and Hove built-up area, the 15th most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Since 2010, northern parts of the borough, including the Worthing Downland Estate, have formed part of the South Downs National Park. In 2019, the Art Deco Worthing Pier was named the best in Britain.

West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an area of 1,991 square kilometres, West Sussex borders Hampshire to the west, Surrey to the north, and East Sussex to the east. The county town and only city in West Sussex is Chichester, located in the south-west of the county. In the 2011 census, West Sussex recorded a population of 806,900.

Worthing Borough Council

Worthing Borough Council

Worthing Borough Council is a district council in the county of West Sussex, based in the borough of Worthing. The borough council was created in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 out of the existing Worthing Municipal Council, which also had borough status. It forms the lower tier of local government in Worthing, responsible for local services such as housing, planning, leisure and tourism. Since 2014 it has been a constituent council of the Greater Brighton City Region.

Listed building

Listed building

In the United Kingdom a listed building is a structure of particular architectural and/or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, Cadw in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Environment Agency in Northern Ireland. The term has also been used in the Republic of Ireland, where buildings are protected under the Planning and Development Act 2000, although the statutory term in Ireland is "protected structure".

Charles Cowles-Voysey

Charles Cowles-Voysey

Charles Cowles-Voysey was an English architect.

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery

Worthing Museum and Art Gallery is in the centre of Worthing near the grade II* listed St Paul's. The building, which celebrated its centenary in 2008, was originally designed to house the town's library as well as the museum, the library section being funded by Andrew Carnegie. It is the largest museum in West Sussex.

History

The old town hall in South Street
The old town hall in South Street

The town commissioners in Worthing originally met at the Nelson Inn on South Street[2] and later at the Royal Oak Public House in Market Street.[2][3] In the 1820s the commissioners decided to procure a dedicated town hall: the site they selected at the north end of South Street was a garden owned by Sir Timothy Shelley, former Whig MP for Horsham and New Shoreham and the father of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. The first purpose-built town hall, which was designed in the neoclassical style with a tetrastyle portico and a clock tower was completed in June 1835.[3][4] The town hall also acted as a courthouse for hearing quarter sessions and assizes.[3]

In the 1920s civic leaders decided that the first purpose-built town hall was inadequate[a] and decided to procure a new building: the site they selected this time had been occupied by two large residential properties.[5] The war memorial at the site, which takes the form of a bronze statue of a soldier holding a rifle mounted on a stone plinth, pre-dates the town hall: it was sculpted by Joseph Whitehead and Sons and unveiled by Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson on 11 April 1921.[6]

Construction of the second purpose-built town hall commenced on 1 October 1931.[7] It was designed by Charles Cowles-Voysey in the Neo-Georgian style, built in red brick with ashlar stone dressings at a cost of £398,117 and was officially opened by Prince George on 22 May 1933.[8] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nineteen bays facing onto Chapel Road; the central section of nine bays, which slightly projected forward, featured a three-bay tetrastyle portico with Ionic order columns supporting an entablature inscribed with the words "Ex terra copiam e mari salutum" (English: "From the land fulness and from the sea health") and a large pediment.[1] There was a clock tower and a cupola with Tuscan order columns, which was capped with a finial, at roof level.[1] Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's parlour: a map of Worthing, painted with oil paints on a wooden panel, was commissioned from the cartographer, MacDonald Gill, and installed in the mayor's parlour.[9]

A large assembly hall, with a proscenium arch was built as a separate structure to the rear of the main building and also completed in 1933.[1] The foyer of the assembly hall was decorated with two panels, one on the left and the other on the right, each designed by the sculptor, Laurence Bradshaw, and depicting a male figure standing astride two fishes.[10]

In October 1934, the town hall was the starting point for the Battle of South Street, a riot which took place in the town as members of the British Union of Fascists and various anti-fascist protesters clashed after a newly elected fascist councillor, Charles Budd, failed to secure the committee places he desired on the council.[11]

The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the local municipal borough council for much of the 20th century and remained the local seat of government after the formation of the enlarged Worthing Borough Council in 1974.[12] Princess Alexandra and the Duchess of Gloucester visited the town hall on 20 June 2000 and 20 June 2006 respectively to take part in lunches for disabled war veterans on excursions from London.[13] In November 2015, the council agreed that the town hall should be registered as a venue for marriages and civil partnerships.[14]

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Horsham (UK Parliament constituency)

Horsham (UK Parliament constituency)

Horsham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament, centred on the eponymous town in West Sussex, its former rural district and part of another rural district. Its Member of Parliament (MP) was Francis Maude between 1997 and 2015; since then it has been Jeremy Quin, both of the Conservative Party.

New Shoreham (UK Parliament constituency)

New Shoreham (UK Parliament constituency)

New Shoreham, sometimes simply called Shoreham, was a parliamentary borough centred on the town of Shoreham-by-Sea in what is now West Sussex. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 1707, then to the House of Commons of Great Britain until 1800, and finally to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 until it was abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, with effect from the 1885 general election.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Robert Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. American literary critic Harold Bloom describes him as "a superb craftsman, a lyric poet without rival, and surely one of the most advanced sceptical intellects ever to write a poem."

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing styles of architecture in most of Europe for the previous two centuries, Renaissance architecture and Baroque architecture, already represented partial revivals of the Classical architecture of ancient Rome and ancient Greek architecture, but the Neoclassical movement aimed to strip away the excesses of Late Baroque and return to a purer and more authentic classical style, adapted to modern purposes.

Clock tower

Clock tower

Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building. Some other buildings also have clock faces on their exterior but these structures serve other main functions.

Court of quarter sessions

Court of quarter sessions

The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388. They were also established in Scotland, Ireland and in various other dominions of the British Empire.

Assizes

Assizes

The courts of assize, or assizes, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction, though most of their work was on the criminal side. The assizes heard the most serious cases, most notably those subject to capital punishment or later life imprisonment. Other serious cases were dealt with by the quarter sessions, while the more minor offences were dealt with summarily by justices of the peace in petty sessions.

Charles Cowles-Voysey

Charles Cowles-Voysey

Charles Cowles-Voysey was an English architect.

Ashlar

Ashlar

Ashlar is finely dressed stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruvius as opus isodomum, or less frequently trapezoidal. Precisely cut "on all faces adjacent to those of other stones", ashlar is capable of very thin joints between blocks, and the visible face of the stone may be quarry-faced or feature a variety of treatments: tooled, smoothly polished or rendered with another material for decorative effect.

Ionic order

Ionic order

The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.

Entablature

Entablature

An entablature is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and are commonly divided into the architrave, the frieze, and the cornice. The Greek and Roman temples are believed to be based on wooden structures, the design transition from wooden to stone structures being called petrification.

Pediment

Pediment

Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pediment is sometimes the top element of a portico. For symmetric designs, it provides a center point and is often used to add grandness to entrances.

Design

Exterior

Built in a Scandinavian-influenced Classical style, Worthing Town Hall was designed by Charles Cowles-Voysey, with detailing by John Brandon-Jones. The building consists of a centre and two wings. The centre has three storeys of red brick. It has a central Ionic portico bearing the motto 'Ex terra copium e mari salutem'. Behind the portico the first floor windows have cast iron balconettes. It has a clock tower with a cupola surmounted by a ball and finial and eight Tuscan columns with plumed capitals. The north and south wings have two storeys, also of red brick.[15]

Interior

The carpet in the council chamber is by Maufe of Heal's. The entrance hall floor is by Gilbert Bayes. In the mayor's parlour is a map of Worthing by MacDonald Gill.[16] It depicts Worthing in 1933, when there was no development in Findon Valley or West Durrington, and very little at Goring-by-Sea. Instead there were many glasshouses across the borough that grew a variety of produce including figs, tomatoes, grapes, cucumbers, mushrooms and chrysanthemums.[17]

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John Brandon-Jones

John Brandon-Jones

John Brandon-Jones was a British architect. His work was heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, of which he was a noted architectural historian.

Ionic order

Ionic order

The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan, and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite order. Of the three classical canonic orders, the Corinthian order has the narrowest columns, followed by the Ionic order, with the Doric order having the widest columns.

Portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.

Clock tower

Clock tower

Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another building. Some other buildings also have clock faces on their exterior but these structures serve other main functions.

Cupola

Cupola

In architecture, a cupola is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.

Finial

Finial

A finial or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature.

Capital (architecture)

Capital (architecture)

In architecture the capital or chapiter forms the topmost member of a column. It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface. The capital, projecting on each side as it rises to support the abacus, joins the usually square abacus and the usually circular shaft of the column. The capital may be convex, as in the Doric order; concave, as in the inverted bell of the Corinthian order; or scrolling out, as in the Ionic order. These form the three principal types on which all capitals in the classical tradition are based. The Composite order established in the 16th century on a hint from the Arch of Titus, adds Ionic volutes to Corinthian acanthus leaves.

Heal's

Heal's

Heal's is a British furniture retail company comprising seven stores, selling a range of furniture, lighting and home accessories. For over two centuries, it has been known for promoting modern design and employing talented young designers.

Gilbert Bayes

Gilbert Bayes

Gilbert William Bayes was an English sculptor. His art works varied in scale from medals to large architectural clocks, monuments and equestrian statues and he was also a designer of some note, creating chess pieces, mirrors and cabinets.

MacDonald Gill

MacDonald Gill

Leslie MacDonald Gill, commonly known as MacDonald Gill or Max Gill, was a noted early-twentieth-century British graphic designer, cartographer, artist and architect.

Findon Valley

Findon Valley

Findon Valley is a neighbourhood of Worthing, in the borough of Worthing in West Sussex, England. It lies on the A24 road 2.9 miles (4.7 km) north of the town centre.

Goring-by-Sea

Goring-by-Sea

Goring-by-Sea, commonly referred to simply as Goring, is a neighbourhood of Worthing and former civil parish, now in Worthing district in West Sussex, England. It lies west of West Worthing, about 2.5 miles (4 km) west of Worthing town centre. Historically in Sussex, in the rape of Arundel, Goring has been part of the borough of Worthing since 1929.

Appearances in film and television

Source: "Worthing Town Hall", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2022, April 23rd), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worthing_Town_Hall.

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See also
Notes
  1. ^ The clock tower was found to be unsafe and was removed in the 1950s and the building as a whole was demolished in 1966.[3]
References
  1. ^ a b c d Historic England. "Worthing Town Hall including Assembly Hall and Worthing Room (1250786)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b Hare 1991, p. 1
  3. ^ a b c d "The building that stood at the heart of Worthing". Shoreham Herald. 22 May 2014. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  4. ^ Baggs, A. P.; Currie, C. R. J.; Elrington, C. R.; Keeling, S. M.; Rowland, A. M. (1980). "'Worthing: Local government and public services', in A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 6 Part 1, Bramber Rape (Southern Part), ed. T P Hudson". London: British History Online. pp. 114–119. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  5. ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1912. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  6. ^ Historic England. "Worthing War Memorial (1447552)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  7. ^ "History of Worthing Town Hall and the Mayoralty". Adur and Worthing Councils. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  8. ^ "Programme and Souvenir for the opening of Worthing Town Hall". National Archives. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  9. ^ "MacDonald Gill - the story behind the West Sussex mapmaker and architect". Sussex Life. 29 June 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  10. ^ "Two decorative plaques". Public Sculptures of Sussex. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  11. ^ Hare 1991, pp. 175–176.
  12. ^ Local Government Act 1972. 1972 c.70. The Stationery Office Ltd. 1997. ISBN 0-10-547072-4.
  13. ^ "Royal Visits to West Sussex". Lord Lieutenant. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  14. ^ "Town hall weddings proposal approved". Worthing Herald. 4 November 2015. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  15. ^ Williamson et al. 2019, p. 731
  16. ^ Williamson et al. 2019, p. 731
  17. ^ "Worthing Map". MacDonald Gill. 2 January 2020. Retrieved 22 January 2021.
  18. ^ "Crew film in Worthing for BBC drama Cuffs". 29 April 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
  19. ^ Logan, Jennifer (1 July 2020). "Film crews spotted in Lewes – this is why". Sussex Express. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
Bibliography
  • Hare, Chris (1991). Historic Worthing: The Untold Story. Cassell Reference. ISBN 9780900075919.
  • Williamson, Elizabeth; Hudson, Tim; Musson, Jeremy; Nairn, Ian; Pevsner, Nikolaus (2019). Sussex: West. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300225211.

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