Wallsend Town Hall

Wallsend Town Hall
Wallsend Town Hall
	Wallsend Town Hall
Location	Wallsend
Coordinates	54°59′31″N 1°31′36″W / 54.9919°N 1.5266°W
Built	1908
Architect	E. F. W. Liddle and P. L. Brown
Architectural style(s)	Edwardian Baroque style
Listed Building – Grade II
Official name	Town Hall
Designated	19 February 1986
Reference no.	1025330
	Shown in Tyne and Wear

Wallsend Town Hall is a municipal building on High Street East in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, England. The town hall, which was the headquarters of North Tyneside Council from 1974 to 2008, is a Grade II listed building.^[1]

History

After Wallsend became incorporated as a municipal borough in 1901, the new civic leaders initially met at the masonic hall in Station Road in Wallsend which had been completed in 1893.^[2]^[3]^[4] After finding this arrangement inadequate, civic leaders decided to procure dedicated municipal buildings: the site they selected was open land on the south side of High Street East.^[5]

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the mayor, William Boyd, in 1907.^[2] It was designed by E. F. W. Liddle and P. L. Brown in the Edwardian Baroque style, was built at a cost of £15,557 and was officially opened by Alderman George Allan in September 1908.^[2] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto High Street East with the end bays projected forward as pavilions; the central section, which slightly projected forward, featured a round headed doorway on the ground floor, a balcony and a triple window on the first floor and an open pediment containing the town's coat of arms above.^[1] On the right of the symmetrical section there two bays which were set back and another two bays which curved round into Lawson Street.^[1] The architect installed a turret and dome above the curved section, and a projecting clock by Potts & Sons, which had been a gift from William Boyd, was installed on the face of the right hand pavilion.^[1] Internally, the principal room was the council chamber which incorporated nine stained glass windows each of which depicted two heraldic shields of local relevance.^[2]^[6]

Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the town hall and waved to the crowd from the balcony on 29 October 1954.^[7]^[8]

The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of Wallsend Borough Council and became the local seat of government of North Tyneside Council in 1974.^[9] It continued to be the meeting place of the council^[10] until it moved to new premises at Cobalt Business Park in 2008.^[11] After carrying out a local consultation in spring 2009, the council established there was widespread support for refurbishing the town hall and finding an alternative use for it.^[12] The town hall, which had become surplus to requirements, was sold to a developer, Sovereign Adavo, in 2014 and a programme of works to convert the building for commercial use was completed in February 2015.^[13]