Shipley Town Hall
Shipley Town Hall
LocationKirkgate, Shipley
Coordinates53°50′01″N 1°46′46″W / 53.8336°N 1.7794°W / 53.8336; -1.7794
Built1932
Architectural style(s)Neo-Georgian style
Shipley Town Hall is located in West Yorkshire
Shipley Town Hall
Shown in West Yorkshire

Shipley Town Hall is a municipal structure in Kirkgate in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England. It was the headquarters of Shipley Urban District Council.

History

Following significant population growth, largely associated with the increasing number of worsted mills in the town, the area became an urban district in 1894.[1] The new council initially occupied the office of the former local board of health at the Manor House,[2] but, during the First World War, it relocated to dedicated council offices at Somerset House.[3] In the late 1920s, in the context of high rates of unemployment during the Great Depression, civic leaders decided to create construction jobs for local people by procuring a new town hall: the site they selected had been occupied by the Manor House, which had since been demolished.[a]

The new building was designed in the Neo-Georgian style and was opened by the Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, the Earl of Harewood, on 2 December 1932.[8][9][10] The earl unveiled a plaque in the entrance hall and was presented with a key decorated with the town's coat of arms in enamel.[8] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with thirteen bays facing onto Kirkgate with the end bays projected forward; the central section of three bays, which also projected forward, featured a flight of steps leading up to a doorway flanked by banded pilasters and brackets supporting an iron balcony which was accessed from a French door. There were three tall sash windows on the floor above and, at roof level, there were a modillioned cornice, four urns and three dormer windows. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber.[11]

The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the urban district for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government after the enlarged Bradford Council was formed in 1974.[12] Nevertheless, Bradford Council continued to use the town hall as the local venue for meetings of groups of officers from different departments convened by an area co-ordinator.[13] The town hall was the venue for a controversial public inquiry, from which angry protestors were excluded, into the route of a proposed Airedale Trunk Road in February 1976.[14][15] The council chamber and a reception room known as the Miller Room were extensively refurbished in 1998.[16]

Notes

  1. ^ The Manor House, also known as Over Hall, had been built for William Rawson in 1670.[4][5] It was acquired by John Wilmer Field in 1823 and was inherited, in 1832, by his daughter, Mary Field who married William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse in 1836; it then passed to Lawrence Parsons, 4th Earl of Rosse before being acquired by Sir James Roberts in 1911.[6] The Manor House was demolished in 1915 and the council acquired the vacant site from Roberts in January 1921.[7]

References

  1. ^ "Shipley UD". Vision of Britain. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  2. ^ "No. 27618". The London Gazette. 20 November 1903. p. 7227.
  3. ^ "Shipley Urban District Council: New allotments". Shipley Times and Express. 6 December 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  4. ^ James, John (1866). The History of Bradford and Its Parish: With Additions and Continuations to the Present Time. Vol. 1. London: Longmans Green Reader and Dyer. pp. 300–302.
  5. ^ Sheeran, George (1984). Village to Mill Town: Shipley and its Society 1600–1870. Bradford: Bradford Libraries. p. 12.
  6. ^ "The Earl of Rosse's Heaton And Shipley Estates Bradford, Yorkshire. Particulars Of Sale, 1911". Historic England. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  7. ^ Hampshire, Bill. "The Water Mills of Shipley" (PDF). Shipley Local History Society. p. 21. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  8. ^ a b "On this day: December 2". York Press. 2 December 2017. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  9. ^ Firth, Gary (1996). Shipley and Windhill. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Chalford. p. 15. ISBN 978-0752406152.
  10. ^ "Souvenir of the Opening of the Town Hall, Shipley December 2nd 1932". Saltaire Collection. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  11. ^ "Council Chamber, Shipley Town Hall". Bradford Council. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  12. ^ Local Government Act 1972. 1972 c.70. The Stationery Office Ltd. 1997. ISBN 0-10-547072-4.
  13. ^ Burns, Danny (1994). The Politics of Decentralisation: Revitalising Local Democracy. Palgrave. p. 100. ISBN 978-0333521649.
  14. ^ Tyme, John (1978). Motorways versus Democracy. Macmillan. p. 28. ISBN 978-0333231876.
  15. ^ "How the '75 Inquiry was stopped". Shipley Times and Express. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  16. ^ "Shipley Town Hall, brochure celebrating the refurbishment of The Council Chamber and the Miller Room". National Archives. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
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