County Hall, Norwich
County Hall
County Hall is located in Norfolk
County Hall
County Hall
Location within Norfolk
General information
Architectural styleModern style
AddressMartineau Lane, Norwich, Norfolk
CountryUnited Kingdom
Coordinates52°36′54″N 1°18′26″E / 52.6150°N 1.3073°E / 52.6150; 1.3073
Completed1968
Design and construction
Architect(s)Reginald Uren

County Hall is a municipal facility at Martineau Lane in Norwich, Norfolk. It is the headquarters of Norfolk County Council.

History

For much of the 20th century meetings of Norfolk County Council had taken place in the Shirehall in Market Avenue.[1] The education department, and some other departments, had moved to new premises at Thorpe Road in Norwich in 1929.[2]

After deciding that the existing premises were inadequate for their needs, county leaders decided to procure a new building: the site they selected had been occupied by Bracondale Lodge, a country house which had been commissioned by Dr Philip Meadows Martineau, a clinician at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, in 1793.[3] Bracondale Lodge had been acquired by Jeremiah Colman MP in 1877 and had remained in the ownership of the Colman family until it was demolished to make way for County Hall in 1966.[4]

The new building was designed by Reginald Uren in the Modern style,[5] built at a cost of £2.5 million[6] and was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 24 May 1968.[7][8] The design involved for the 10-storey tower (it had a two-storey podium and eight storeys above) involved continuous bands of glazing with Hathernware faience tiles above and below.[9][10] There were also low-rise blocks to the south west and north east of the tower[9] access to which was from a roundabout on Martineau Lane.[11] In the 1980s an emergency control centre was established in the basement in case of a nuclear attack.[6] Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and committee rooms.[6] The Norfolk Police headquarters was accommodated within the building.[6]

When RAF Coltishall closed in November 2006 a SEPECAT Jaguar, which had acted as a gate guardian at the RAF station, was moved to County Hall and installed to the west of the main building.[12][13]

In August 2013, following an application from the county council, English Heritage decided not to list County Hall as the building did not meet the criteria for listing post-1945 buildings.[6] A major refurbishment of the building was carried out at a cost of circa £60 million between 2013 and 2019.[14]

References

  1. ^ "History of Norfolk County Council". Norfolk County Archives. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  2. ^ "Norwich, Thorpe Road, Norfolk County Council Education Offices". National Archives. Retrieved 22 October 2020.
  3. ^ "Distinguished doctor who lived in fine style". Norwich Evening News. 18 August 2004. Archived from the original on 20 June 2009. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  4. ^ "Bracondale Lodge". The DiCamillo Collection. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  5. ^ Pevsner, Nikolaus; Wilson, Bill (2002) [1962]. Norfolk 2: North-west and South. Pevsner Architectural Guides. Yale University Press. p. 167. ISBN 978-0-300-09657-6.
  6. ^ a b c d e "County Hall". Norfolk Heritage Explorer. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  7. ^ "Queen opens new County Hall". Anglia Television. 1968. Archived from the original on 10 February 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  8. ^ "Review to look at the future of Norfolk's County Hall". Eastern Daily Press. 25 June 2011. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  9. ^ a b Stratton, Michael (2016). Structure and Style: Conserving Twentieth Century Buildings. Taylor and Francis. p. 181. ISBN 978-1138155022.
  10. ^ "Norfolk". Tile Gazetteer. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  11. ^ "How to get here". Norfolk County Council. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  12. ^ "The former Royal Air Force Coltishall". Simply Planes. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  13. ^ "SEPECAT Jaguar GR1, XW563 / S.07, Royal Air Force". AB Pic. Retrieved 21 October 2020.
  14. ^ "As Norfolk faces cuts and council tax hike, revamp bill for County Hall soars by extra £24m". Eastern Daily Press. 18 January 2019. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
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