County Hall, Durham
Entrance to County Hall
County Hall is located in County Durham
County Hall
County Hall
Location within County Durham
General information
Architectural styleBrutalist style
AddressAykley Heads, Durham
CountryUnited Kingdom
Coordinates54°47′09″N 1°35′06″W / 54.7859°N 1.5850°W / 54.7859; -1.5850
Completed1963
Design and construction
Architect(s)Sir Basil Spence

County Hall is a municipal building at Aykley Heads in Durham, County Durham, England. It is the headquarters of Durham County Council.

History

In the first half of the 20th century Durham County Council was based at the Shire Hall in Old Elvet, Durham.[1] After deciding the Shire Hall was inadequate for their needs, county leaders chose to procure a new county headquarters: the site selected had previously been open land[2] forming part of the Aykley Heads Estate which centred around an 18th century mansion that had been built and occupied by the Dixon-Johnson family.[3][4][5]

Work on the new building began in 1960: it was designed by Sir Basil Spence in the Brutalist style,[6] was built by John Laing & Son[7] at a cost of £2.75 million and was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 14 October 1963.[8] The design for the seven-storey building involved continuous bands of glazing with exposed concrete beams above and below: a large mosaic mural depicting local scenes was designed by Clayton and Gelson and installed on the face of the building.[9] Internally, the principal room was the council chamber; a memorial to county council staff who had died in the First and Second World Wars was recovered from the Shire Hall and installed outside the new council chamber.[10]

Works of art in the building included a painting, 30.75 feet (9.37 m) long and 5.66 feet (1.73 m) high, by Norman Cornish, depicting a miners' gala, which was located in the entrance hall. In March 2020, it was relocated to Bishop Auckland Town Hall.[11]

Replacement

In March 2019, the County Council approved a proposal to move to a smaller new-build facility on the Sands car park at Freeman's Place in the centre of Durham.[12] Of around 1,850 staff currently based in County Hall, 1,000 will be based at the new HQ and approximately 850 will relocate to four council office sites being developed across the county in Crook, Meadowfield, Seaham and Spennymoor.[13] The building works, carried out by Kier Group at a cost of £50 million, were completed in March 2022.[14][15][16] Richard Holden, Conservative member of parliament for North-West Durham, described the new council headquarters as a 'vanity project', questioning the suitability of the location as well as tax increases and cuts to services used to pay for the development.[17] With the Labour council leadership that ordered the new building having been replaced by a Conservative-led coalition after the 2021 local elections, the decision was made to sell the new building to Durham University for £84 million as a new home for Durham University Business School and instead to build a new civic centre on the existing site in Aykley Heads. The sale was condemned by the opposition Labour group in the County Council.[18] In 2023, it was announced that plans to build a new civic centre on the current site would not go ahead and that the council now planned to buy the nearby Rivergreen building and redevelop it as a new council HQ from 2025.[19] Under the new plans, the current County Hall would still be demolished and the site redeveloped as part of an innovation district.[20]

The county council also announced plans in 2019 to move the county archives from County Hall to a new history centre at Mount Oswald.[21] Once the moves have taken place, the Council plans to demolish County Hall as part of a masterplan for Aykley Heads to redevelop the wider site as a business park with supporting retail, financial and professional, food and drink, non-residential institutions, and assembly and leisure uses with associated landscaping, multi-storey and surface car parking.[22]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to County Hall, Durham.
  1. ^ "Historic building in Durham turned into luxury hotel". Chronicle Live. 21 March 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1960. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  3. ^ Page, William (1928). "'Parishes: St Oswald's – Introduction', in A History of the County of Durham". London: British History Online. pp. 144–157. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  4. ^ Historic England. "Aykley Heads (1322874)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  5. ^ "Dixon-Johnson Papers". Archives Hub. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  6. ^ "Extracts from the year of office of the Right Worshipful Mayor of Durham, Councillor Norman Richardson JP and the mayoress". Yorkshire Film Archive. 1963. Archived from the original on 20 September 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  7. ^ Richardson, Michael (2009). Durham City Through Time. Amberley Publishing. ISBN 978-1848685192.
  8. ^ "Durham County Hall proposed for listed building protection". Northern Echo. 8 August 2009. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  9. ^ "County Architects' Messrs Clayton and Gelson, Mosaic Mural, 1963". 20th Century Society. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  10. ^ "Plaque 1914–1918; 1939–1945". North East War Memorials. Retrieved 12 October 2020.
  11. ^ "The story of Norman Cornish's 30ft long mining mural". Northern Echo. 14 March 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  12. ^ "Durham County Council approves £50m headquarters switch". BBC. 5 March 2019. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  13. ^ "Information about our new HQ". Durham County Council. Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  14. ^ "Kier to start work on £50m new home for Durham council". Constriction Enquirer. 16 August 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  15. ^ "Work is progressing with Durham County Council's new HQ – but campaigners are still 'angry'". Chronicle Live. 28 January 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  16. ^ "New £50m Durham Council HQ could be sold to university". BBC News. 19 April 2022.
  17. ^ "MP claims council has been "squirrelling away taxpayers' money for years" for new HQ while simultaneously reducing local services". The Northern Echo. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
  18. ^ Gavin Havery (2 November 2022). "Waterside Building sold to Durham University Business School". Northern Echo.
  19. ^ Bill Edgar (24 July 2023). "Plans for new Durham Council HQ at Aykley Heads set to change". Northern Echo.
  20. ^ Bill Edgar (8 September 2023). "Durham County Council to demolish County Hall in relocation". Northern Echo.
  21. ^ "Designs revealed for new Durham History Centre to house DLI collection". Northern Echo. 19 June 2019. Retrieved 20 September 2019.
  22. ^ Harding, Colin (1 December 2020). "Planning Services - Committee Report" (PDF). Durham County Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
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