| Old Town Hall | |
| Coordinates: | 51.6387°N -0.4694°W |
| Location: | High Street, Rickmansworth |
| Built: | 1869 |
| Architect: | Arthur Allum |
| Architecture: | Gothic Revival style |
The Old Town Hall was a municipal building in the High Street in Rickmansworth, a town in Hertfordshire, in England. The upper floors have been demolished and the ground floor is now in retail use.
In the mid-1860s, a group of local businessmen decided to form a company, known as the Rickmansworth Town Hall Company, to finance and commission a town hall for the town.[1] The site they selected, on the south side of the High Street, was occupied by the old Market Hall, which had become very dilapidated.[2] [3] The site was donated to the directors by the lord of the manor, John Saunders Gilliat, whose residence was at The Cedars in Rickmansworth.[4]
The new building was designed by Arthur Allum of Westminster in the Gothic Revival style, built in red brick with Bath stone dressings at a cost of £1,200 and was officially opened in December 1869.[5] [6] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of two bays facing onto the High Street. The left-hand bay featured an arched doorway with an archivolt, surmounted by a lamp which projected over the pavement. The right-hand bay on the ground floor and both bays on the first floor were fenestrated by casement windows with stone surrounds. There was an additional storey in the left-hand bay at attic level, fenestrated by a small square window and surmounted by a stepped gable with a finial.[7] [8] Internally, the principal room was an assembly hall, which was long and wide and which featured a hammerbeam roof.[6] It was used for dances, concerts, lectures, and monthly meetings of the Penny Reading Society.[9]
An inquiry was held in February 1896 at the hall, to consider whether to establish an urban district.[10] This proposal went ahead,[11] [12] and the first meeting of Rickmansworth Urban District Council was held at the Town Hall on 16 April 1898.[13] In 1912, the assembly hall was converted into an auditorium to facilitate its use as a cinema known as the Electric Picture Playhouse, with a capacity of 300 people. It was later renamed the Electric Palace, but it closed as a cinema in 1927.[14]
Meanwhile, the urban district council relocated to the former home of William Penn at Basing House, on the north side of the High Street in 1930.[15] The auditorium behind the old town hall was later demolished, along with the upper part of the town hall facade.[16] The lower part of the facade was altered to create two shop fronts, while a two-storey office block was built on the site of the auditorium behind.[17] [18]