Sheffield Town Hall
Encyclopedia
Sheffield Town Hall is a building in the City of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The building is used by Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council
Sheffield City Council is the city council for the metropolitan borough of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It consists of 84 councillors, elected to represent 28 wards, each with three councillors...

, and also contains a publicly displayed collection of silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

ware. The current building, Sheffield's fourth town hall, is located on Pinstone Street. It was designed by the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

-based architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 E. W. Mountford and constructed over a seven year period from 1890 to 1897, opening on 21 May 1897. An extension designed by F. E. P. Edwards was completed in 1923.

The design echoed to a certain extent the architecture of the adjacent St. Paul's Church of 1720 (now demolished). The exterior is built of "Stoke" stone from the Stoke Hall Quarry in Grindleford
Grindleford
Grindleford is a village and parish in the county of Derbyshire, in the East Midlands of England. It lies at an altitude of in the valley of the River Derwent in the Peak District National Park. On the west side of the valley is the high Sir William Hill, and to the south-east lies the gritstone...

, Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

 and is decorated with carvings by F. W. Pomeroy
F. W. Pomeroy
Frederick William Pomeroy RA was a prolific British sculptor of architectural and monumental works.He was born in London, the son of an artist-craftsman. He trained with William Silver Frith at the South London Technical School of Art , where he was also taught by Jules Dalou...

. The frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...

s depict the industries of Sheffield, and the 64 metre high clock-tower is surmounted by a statue of Vulcan. During construction, the building was criticised for its expensive embellishments.

The building was opened by Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

, using a remote control
Remote control
A remote control is a component of an electronics device, most commonly a television set, used for operating the television device wirelessly from a short line-of-sight distance.The remote control is usually contracted to remote...

 lock from her carriage. The turning of the key in the lock triggered a light in the building which was the signal for three concealed men to open the gates.

Interior

The entry contains displays relating to and leads to the Main Entrance Hall with a grand marble staircase. This also has an "Electrolier" an electric chandelier
Chandelier
A chandelier is a branched decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture with two or more arms bearing lights. Chandeliers are often ornate, containing dozens of lamps and complex arrays of glass or crystal prisms to illuminate a room with refracted light...

, part of the original lighting of the building. The walls include friezes including a depiction of the slaying of the Dragon of Wharncliffe
Dragon of Wantley
The Dragon of Wantley is a 17th century satirical verse parody about a dragon and a brave knight. It was included in Thomas Percy's 1767 Reliques of Ancient Poetry....

. On the first landing is a statue of the first Lord Mayor Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk
Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk
Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk, , styled Baron Maltravers until 1856 and Earl of Arundel and Surrey between 1856 and 1860, was a British Unionist politician and philanthropist...

.

The first floor has a gallery running its length which can be divided into four sections by means of powered oak panels descending from the ceiling. The south room is the Lord Mayor's Parlour which is kept permanently divided. On the same floor is the oak-panelled Council Room and its antechamber, which has above its door the advice "Be Ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves". There are photographs of former mayors in the antechamber and some paintings in the parlour.

Previous Buildings

Sheffield's first town hall was referred to in a 1637 survey of the area. It is thought to have been at 10 Pinfold Street. From 1700–1808 there was a small brick-built community hall in the corner of the Churchyard. It was owned by the Town Trustees
Sheffield Town Trust
The Sheffield Town Trust, formerly officially known as the Burgery of Sheffield, is a charitable trust operating in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.-Mediaeval period:...

, as was its replacement, now Sheffield Old Town Hall
Sheffield Old Town Hall
Sheffield Old Town Hall stands on Waingate in central Sheffield, England, opposite Castle Market.The building was commissioned to replace Sheffield's first town hall, which had opened in 1700 to a design by William Renny...

. In 1886 the council cleared a number of premises in the Pinstone Street area to make way for the current Town Hall, and the old building was converted for use as a court, with further additions by Flockton, Gibbs & Flockton in 1896–7.

Sheffield Peace Gardens

A new extension to the Town Hall was planned in the late 1930s and necessitated the demolition of the adjacent St Paul's Church in 1938. The extension plans were subsequently put on hold due to the Second World War, and the site was made into a public garden instead. The garden was called St Paul's Garden but was more popularly known as the Peace Gardens, which became the official name in 1985. One feature of the Peace Gardens was a standard ruler, 100 feet (30.5 m) long, built of metal and running along what was St Paul's Parade. It was accurately horizontal and varied in height above the pavement from a few inches to about four feet. It was possible for a small child to run along the ruler, as it was about a foot wide. It was presented to the City by the Lord Mayor in 1910, partly as a Standard of Length, and partly for its public education value. The ruler showed pre-metric measurements such as chain
Chain (unit)
A chain is a unit of length; it measures 66 feet or 22 yards or 100 links . There are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. An acre is the area of 10 square chains...

s, links and rod
Rod (unit)
The rod is a unit of length equal to 5.5 yards, 5.0292 metres, 16.5 feet, or of a statute mile. A rod is the same length as a perch or a pole. In old English, the term lug is also used.-History:...

s.

By the 1990s, the gardens had got a bad reputation as a haven for drunkards. In 1998 the gardens were renovated as the first stage of the Sheffield Council's Heart of the City project. The plans faced substantial local opposition as the Peace Gardens were a popular and well-loved feature of the city centre at the time. The new layout with its emphasis on water-features was initially criticised for its lack of garden, but has since become a popular venue for families during the summer; its walk-in fountain is especially popular with children.

The New Town Hall Extension

In 1977, a new council building in a modern style
Brutalist architecture
Brutalist architecture is a style of architecture which flourished from the 1950s to the mid 1970s, spawned from the modernist architectural movement.-The term "brutalism":...

 was added to the east of the Peace Gardens, and was connected to the old Town Hall by way of a glazed flyover. The building was immediately unpopular and was nicknamed The Egg-Box after its appearance. The new building, complete with roof-garden, cost in the region of £9 million and was built with a life-span of about 500 years following concerns about the tenacity of the concrete structures built in the previous decade. It was demolished in 2002 after just 25 years to make way for the Sheffield Winter Gardens
Sheffield Winter Gardens
Sheffield Winter Garden in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire is one of the largest temperate glasshouses to be built in the UK during the last hundred years, and the largest urban glasshouse anywhere in Europe. It is home to more than 2,000 plants from all around the world...

, St Paul's Hotel and an office block, and replaced with a new office block called Howden House to the south of the site on Charles Street.

The extension is the setting for much of the 1984 BBC docufiction
Docufiction
Docufiction is a neologism which refers to the cinematographic combination of documentary and fiction. More precisely, it is a documentary contaminated with fictional elements, in real time, filmed when the events take place, and in which someone - the character - plays his own role in real life...

 Threads
Threads
Threads is a British television drama produced by the BBC in 1984. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, it is a documentary-style account of a nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in northern England....

.
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