Watford Town Hall

Town Hall
Hertfordshire
Watford Town Hall
Type:	Town hall
Location
Grid reference:	TQ10579683
Location:	51°39’34"N, 0°24’10"W
Town:	Watford
History
	Built 1937-39
For:	Borough of Watford by Charles Cowles-Voysey
	Town hall
	Municipal
Information
Owned by:	Watford Borough Council

Watford Town Hall stands at the north end of the High Street in Watford, Hertfordshire: once standing proud at the top of the town centre, it is now cut off by the town's internal through-roads with a clutch of similarly isolated municipal and cultural buildings; the library and the Colloseum venue, the latter being a wing of the Town Hall building. It is a Grade II listed building.

The town hall was built in the late 1930s in the municipal style of the time, with its main High Street frontage presenting a horse-shoe shape. The architect, Charles Cowles-Voysey, also designed a number of other civic buildings, including Worthing Town Hall and Cambridge Guildhall in similar styles.

Design

The Town Hall was designed in 1935 by Charles Cowles-Voysey and built from 1937 to 1939 by Cowles-Voysey assisted by John Brandon- Jones and Robert Ashton: Brandon-Jones did much of the detailed design work. The structure is a reinforced concrete frame, clad in hand-made bricks. It was built on a comer site to a radial plan, with the main entrance in the centre of a concave façade, which originally fronted roundabout but which is now a pull-in, off the internal bypass road. From the entrance façade stretch wings to either side.

At the roof above the main entrance is a lantern clocktower.

Internally, the decoration belies the dull exterior. The modern entrance ahll area is a functional, modern area with little room for aesthetics, but the principal rooms surviving from the 1930s are highly decorative in inventive styles. The staircase hall is panelled in stone, with a grand staircase rising to a bronze balustrade incorporating stylised female figures. The members room and mayor's parlour have raised and fielded panelling over curved wooden fireplaces. The council chamber is of double-height, with tiered, fixed seating in three main circles, and, a rare touch, retains its orginal woven acoustic panels. Anne Brandon-Jones executed the Borough Arms above the mayor's seat.

Refernces

• 'Architects Journal' 30 November 1939