Brent Town Hall
| Brent Town Hall | |
|
Middlesex | |
|---|---|
,_Wembley_-_geograph.org.uk_-_865095.jpg) Brent Town Hall, when occupied by the council | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ19768666 |
| Location: | 51°33’58"N, 0°16’25"W |
| Town: | Wembley Park |
| History | |
| Built 1937-1940 | |
| By: | Clifford Strange |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | The French Education Property Trust |
| Website: | lyceeinternational.london |
Brent Town Hall, originally called Wembley Town Hall, is a former town hall in Wembley Park in Middlesex. The building is T-shaped, with a long façade on Forty Lane.
This town hall was first the seat of Wembley Municipal Borough Council until its abolition in 1965, and then of Brent Council until 2013. Today it is occupied by the Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
The building was commissioned by the Municipal Borough of Wembley to replace their ageing council offices in High Road, Wembley.[2] The site selected for the new building was some open land known as "The Paddocks".[3]
The new building was designed by Clifford Strange,[4] a former student of Thomas S. Tait who had been influenced in his work by the Dutch architect Willem Marinus Dudok.[3] The foundation stone was laid by Alderman Herbert Gauntlett on 9 October 1937.[5]
As the building neared completion, the Second World War began, and it was fitted with a bomb-proof first-aid post.[3] It was opened as 'Wembley Town Hall' in 1940.[1] The main frontage featured two brick wings, fronted by a central tower with a doorway and canopy on the ground floor, a tall window on the first and second floors and the borough coat of arms above.[1] Internally, the principal rooms were the assembly hall and the council chamber, both located on the first floor.[6]
In 1951, Pevsner described Wembley Town Hall as "the best of the modern town halls around London, neither fanciful nor drab".[7] It has also been described as "an English interpretation of Modernism", using brick rather than concrete.[8]
The building was the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Wembley for much of the 20th century and it remained the local seat of government as "Brent Town Hall", after Wembley amalgamated with Willesden to form the 'London Borough of Brent' in 1965,[9] (an artificial area named for want of anything else by the River Brent which runs through it).
In 2009 the council tried unsuccessfully to have the building delisted to facilitate redevelopment of the site.[10] After the council relocated to the new Brent Civic Centre in August 2013, the town hall was sold to The French Education Property Trust which transformed it into an international French school called the Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill, which opened in September 2015.[11]
Outside links
- Detail on Hilversum Raadhuis (mostly in Dutch)
- Brief biography of Dudok with a list of his buildings.
- Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 National Heritage List Brent Town Hall: Town Hall 1262141 (Grade II listing)
- ↑ London Gazette: no. 33668, p. 7918, 9 December 1930.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Barrès-Baker, M.C.. "A Brief Architectural History of Wembley (later Brent) Town Hall". Brent Archives. https://www.brent.gov.uk/media/387409/Wembley_Town_Hall.pdf. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ↑ Abbott, Joshua. "Brent Town Hall". http://www.modernism-in-metroland.co.uk/brent-town-hall.html. Retrieved 10 December 2019.
- ↑ "London's Town Halls". Historic England. p. 18. http://research.historicengland.org.uk/redirect.aspx?id=7096%7CLONDON%27S%20TOWN%20HALLS. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ↑ "The Civic Plunge Revisited". Twentieth Century Society. 24 March 2012. https://www.c20society.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2012-2403-CivicPlungeRevisitedlowres2.pdf. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Middlesex, 1951 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0140702033page 170
- ↑ "Lycée International de Londres Winston Churchill". LSI Architects. https://www.lsiarchitects.co.uk/case-studies/lycee-international-de-londres-winston-churchill/. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
- ↑ King, Rosamund & Barres-Baker, Malcolm (2011), Britain in Old Photographs: The London Borough of Brent, Stroud, The History Press, pp. 5, 47, 96 ISBN 0-75245-827-2
- ↑ "Brent Town Hall could be delisted", Harrow Times, 9 March 2009, http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/4186739.print/, retrieved 15 April 2006
- ↑ "French school Lycee Internationale de Londres Winston Churchill opens in Wembley". Brent and Kilburn Times. 19 September 2015. https://www.kilburntimes.co.uk/news/education/french-school-lycee-internationale-de-londres-winston-churchill-opens-in-wembley-1-4239153. Retrieved 5 April 2020.