Maidenhead Town Hall is a municipal building in St Ives Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England.
History
The 18th century guildhall, demolished in 1963
A medieval guildhall was constructed in the High Street around 1430 and replaced by a larger guildhall, designed by Theodosius Keene in the Italianate style, in 1777.[1][2] In the late 1950s, Maidenhead Borough Council decided to demolish the aging 18th guildhall and replace it with a modern facility.[3]
The site selected for the new building had previously been occupied by a 16th century mansion known as St Ives Place.[4]King Henry VIII granted St Ives Place to Anne of Cleves for life as part of his divorce settlement with her in 1541.[5] In the 18th century, it had become the home of Peniston Powney, the MP for Berkshire[6] and by the early 1920s it was owned by another politician, Lord Desborough.[5]
The new building, which was designed by North & Partners and Sir Hubert Worthington in the Neo-Georgian style, was officially opened by the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, in June 1962.[7][8] The Desborough Suite, which was created to offer conferencing and theatre facilities, was named in honour of the former owner of St Ives Place.[9]
The building was used as a location for several of the "Carry On" series of films starting with Carry On Doctor in 1967.[10] It was the meeting place of Maidenhead Borough Council until 1974 when it became the headquarters of the enlarged Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council.[11] The town hall was extensively refurbished, to a design by McBains Cooper, at a cost of £1.6 million, in 2014,[12] and proposals for the refurbishment of the Desborough Suite, a cost of £2 million, were approved in 2019.[13]
