Deptford Town Hall
| Deptford Town Hall | |
|
Surrey | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Deptford Town Hall | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ36377697 |
| Location: | 51°28’31"N, 0°2’16"W |
| Town: | Deptford |
| History | |
| Address: | New Cross Road |
| Built 1905 | |
| By: | Henry Vaughan Lanchester, James Stewart and Edwin Alfred Rickards |
| Baroque | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | Goldsmiths College |
Deptford Town Hall is a municipal building in New Cross Road, Deptford, on the Surrey side of that town but right next to the Kent border, which was formerly the town hall for the Borough of Deptford. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]
History
The building was commissioned to replace the aging vestry hall of St Paul's, Deptford.[2] The site selected had previously been occupied by a row of residential properties with public baths behind.
The new building was designed by Henry Vaughan Lanchester, James Stewart and Edwin Alfred Rickards in the Baroque style and built by Holloway Brothers; it was officially opened by the mayor, Councillor Joseph Pyne, on 19 July 1905.[3] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto New Cross Road; the central section featured a round arched doorway flanked by figures of Tritons as corbels on the ground floor; there was an oriel window on the first floor with a carved relief of a ship's prow and a pediment containing a tympanum depicting a naval battle above that.[1] Statues of four naval figures, Sir Francis Drake, Robert Blake, Horatio Nelson and an unnamed contemporary admiral, were designed by Henry Poole,[4] and erected on the front of the building at first floor level.[2] A clock tower with a weather vane in the shape of a galleon was erected at roof level.[5][6] Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber and the mayor's chamber on the first floor.[1]
During the First World War, the town hall was infamous for holding all its trials of conscientious objectors in secret.[7] This controversial practice was more recently explored in the film, Devils on Horseback, released in 2018.[8][9]
In the bombing of the Second World War, a V-2 rocket destroyed a Woolworths store on the opposite side of the street killing 160 people in the shop with the blast superficially damaging the town hall itself.
The building ceased to be the local seat of government when the 'Metropolitan Borough of Deptford' was abolished in 1965 and absorbed into a wider administrative area. It was used as a workspace for some departments of the new Lewisham Council until it was acquired by Goldsmiths College in 2000.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 National Heritage List 1193691: Deptford Town Hall (Grade II listing)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 'London's Town Halls' (Historic England), page 148
- ↑ "Souvenir of the opening of the Town Hall". Deptford Borough Council. 19 July 1905. https://archive.org/stream/souvenirofopenin00deptrich/souvenirofopenin00deptrich_djvu.txt. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ↑ McKenzie, Raymond (1 December 2001). Public sculpture of Glasgow. ISBN 978-0-85323-937-6. https://books.google.com/?id=5szc9GBZLwwC&pg=RA3-PA496&lpg=RA3-PA496&dq. Retrieved 29 December 2009.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Historic spaces". Goldsmiths, University of London. https://www.gold.ac.uk/conference-services/spaces/historic/. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
- ↑ "Deptford Town Hall, sculptural decoration by Henry Poole". Bob Speel. http://www.speel.me.uk/sculptlondon/deptfordth.htm. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ↑ "Secret justice leaves a corrupt and damaging legacy". The Conversation. 17 May 2017. https://theconversation.com/secret-justice-leaves-a-corrupt-and-damaging-legacy-77498. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ↑ "Devils on Horseback (2018)". IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7341810/. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
- ↑ "Conscientious Objectors on trial – the lessons of history". London Multimedia News. 18 May 2017. https://londonmultimedianews.com/2017/05/18/conscientious-objectors-on-trial-the-lessons-of-history/. Retrieved 5 May 2020.