County Hall, Kingston upon Thames

County Hall
Surrey
Surrey County Hall
Type:	county hall
Location
Grid reference:	TQ18026868
Location:	51°24’18"N, 0°18’17"W
Town:	Kingston upon Thames
History
	Built 1891-1893
For:	Surrey CC by Charles Henry Howell
	county hall
Information
Owned by:	RER London

County Hall is a grand, prominent municipal building on Penrhyn Road in Kingston upon Thames in Surrey. Built to serve as the headquarters for the council named after the county, it continued to fulfil that role until the end of 2020, albeit that Kingston was outside the council's own jurisdiction for the last 55 years of that time.

The building opened 13 November 1893, and replaced a previous shire hall at the location of today's Inner London Sessions House in Newington in the north-eastern corner of the county.

County Hall is a landmark in Kingston and contains a clock tower entrance, sculptures, plaques of Surrey MPs and Lord Sheriffs, and the council chamber. The street on which it stands, Penrhyn Road, is named in honour of the first chairman of the county council.

History

Surrey had been administered from Newington since the 1790s, and the county council was initially based in the sessions house there. In 1889 the old county magistracies were swept away and new councils erected to continue their administrative work, which new system excluded Newington from the new council's remit, and so as early as 1890 the new Surrey County Council was looking for a new home, considering six towns: Epsom, Guildford, Kingston, Redhill, Surbiton and Wimbledon. A decision to build the new County Hall at Kingston was made in 1891, and with a swiftness latterly unknown to municipal authorities the building opened in 1893.

The county hall in Kingston was designed by Charles Henry Howell, County Surveyor and partner in Howell and Brooks. It was built by the firm Higgs and Hill. It was built between 1891 and 1893. It was opened on 13 November 1893, with bands entertaining invited guests. The building was extended in 1930 (opened by the Duke of Gloucester) and again in 1938, the Ashcombe Block, creating a quadrangle behind the entrance. The Ashcombe block was destroyed by a flying bomb in July 1944, and rebuilt in 1953. The building was further extended in 1963 and 1982, completing a second quadrangle.

County Hall illuminated at night

In July 2003 it was decided to move county government to a new building in Woking and Kingston University planned to acquire County Hall. However, the project was scrapped in January 2006. In 2018 the plan to move to Woking was revived, but the next year the plan changed to move the bureaucracy to Woodhatch Place in Reigate. County Hall, site and building, were purchased by a developer, RER London, in March 2021. The company announced that they were planning "A high quality, residential led, mixed used development comprising residential units (including affordable housing) and commercial / community floorspace".

Film location

A room within County Hall

Film and television productions that have made use of County Hall for location filming have included:

Films

• Vera Drake (2004)
• 102 Dalmatians (2000)
• Keeping Mum (2005)

Television

• The Wrong Mans
• Midsomer Murders
• Silk
• Call the Midwife
• The Bill
• Ashes to Ashes
• Jonathan Creek
• Criminal Justice
• Top Boy
• Downton Abbey
• Silent Witness
• Saxondale

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about County Hall, Kingston upon Thames)

References

• The grand opening of County Hall, Kingston, 13 November 1893: 120th Anniversary