OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS

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sojourned at inns during their sketching expeditions. The "George" at Wargrave has

a sign painted by the distinguished painters Mr. George Leslie, R.A., and Mr.

Broughton, R.A., who, when staying at the inn, kindly painted the sign, which is

hung carefully within doors that it may not be exposed to the mists and rains of the

Thames valley. St. George is sallying forth to slay the dragon on the one side, and

on the reverse he is refreshing himself with a tankard of ale after his labours. Not a

few artists in the early stages of their career have paid their bills at inns by painting

for the landlord. Morland was always in difficulties and adorned many a signboard,

and the art of David Cox, Herring, and Sir William Beechey has been displayed in

this homely fashion. David Cox's painting of the Royal Oak at Bettws-y-Coed was

the subject of prolonged litigation, the sign being valued at £1000, the case being

carried to the House of Lords, and there decided in favour of the freeholder.

Sometimes strange notices appear in inns. The following rather remarkable one was

seen by our artist at the "County Arms," Stone, near Aylesbury:--

"A man is specially engaged to do all the cursing and swearing that is

required in this establishment. A dog is also kept to do all the barking.

Our prize-fighter and chucker-out has won seventy-five prize-fights

and has never been beaten, and is a splendid shot with the revolver. An

undertaker calls here for orders every morning."

Motor-cars have somewhat revived the life of the old inns on the great coaching

roads, but it is only the larger and more important ones that have been aroused into

a semblance of their old life. The cars disdain the smaller establishments, and run

such long distances that only a few houses along the road derive much benefit from

them. For many their days are numbered, and it may be useful to describe them

before, like four-wheelers and hansom-cabs, they have quite vanished away.

Spandril. The Marquis of Granby Inn, Colchester

CHAPTER XI

OLD MUNICIPAL BUILDINGS

No class of buildings has suffered more than the old town halls of our country

boroughs. Many of these towns have become decayed and all their ancient glories

have departed. They were once flourishing places in the palmy days of the cloth

trade, and could boast of fairs and markets and a considerable number of

inhabitants and wealthy merchants; but the tide of trade has flowed elsewhere. The

invention of steam and complex machinery necessitating proximity to coal-fields

has turned its course elsewhere, to the smoky regions of Yorkshire and Lancashire,

and the old town has lost its prosperity and its power. Its charter has gone; it can

boast of no municipal corporation; hence the town hall is scarcely needed save for

some itinerant Thespians, an occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of

rubbish. It begins to fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or

public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of the safety of

the public it has to come down.

On the other hand, an influx of prosperity often dooms the aged town hall to

destruction. It vanishes before a wave of prosperity. The borough has enlarged its

borders. It has become quite a great town and transacts much business. The old

shops have given place to grand emporiums with large plate-glass windows,

wherein are exhibited the most recent fashions of London and Paris, and motor-cars

can be bought, and all is very brisk and up-to-date. The old town hall is now

deemed a very poor and inadequate building. It is small, inconvenient, and unsuited

to the taste of the municipal councillors, whose ideas have expanded with their

trade. The Mayor and Corporation meet, and decide to build a brand-new town hall

replete with every luxury and convenience. The old must vanish.

And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They usually stand in

the centre of the market-place, and have an undercroft, the upper storey resting on

pillars. Beneath this shelter the market women display their wares and fix their

stalls on market days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old

primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had been

purchased and housed in a station of its own. The building has high pointed gables

and mullioned windows, a tiled roof mellowed with age, and a finely wrought vane,

which is a credit to the skill of the local blacksmith. It is a sad pity that this "thing

of beauty" should have to be pulled down and be replaced by a modern building

which is not always creditable to the architectural taste of the age. A law should be

passed that no old town halls should be pulled down, and that all new ones should

be erected on a different site. No more fitting place could be found for the storage

of the antiquities of the town, the relics of its old municipal life, sketches of its old

buildings that have vanished, and portraits of its worthies, than the ancient building

which has for so long kept watch and ward over its destinies and been the scene of

most of the chief events connected with its history.

Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old methods of

municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of rich merchants and

clothiers, who met therein to transact their common business. The guild hall was

the centre of the trade of the town and of its social and commercial life. An

amazing amount of business was transacted therein. If you study the records of any

ancient borough you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild

hall. There the merchants met to talk over their affairs and "drink their guild."

There the Mayor came with the Recorder or "Stiward" to hold his courts and to

issue all "processes as attachementes, summons, distresses, precepts, warantes,

subsideas, recognissaunces, etc." The guild hall was like a living thing. It held

property, had a treasury, received the payments of freemen, levied fines on

"foreigners" who were "not of the guild," administered justice, settled quarrels

between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the complaints of

the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the sovereign, and insisted strongly

on every burgess that he should do his best to promote the "comyn weele and

prophite of ye saide gylde." It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the

common council assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to

the public its decisions and decrees. This guild hall was a living thing. Like the

Brook it sang:--

Men may come and men may go,

But I flow on for ever."

Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild hall lived

on, the central mainspring of the borough's life. Therein were stored the archives of

the town, the charters won, bargained for, and granted by kings and queens, which

gave them privileges of trade, authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey

and sell their goods in other towns. Therein were preserved the civic plate, the

maces that gave dignity to their proceedings, the cups bestowed by royal or noble

personages or by the affluent members of the guild in token of their affection for

their town and fellowship. Therein they assembled to don their robes to march in

procession to the town church to hear Mass, or in later times a sermon, and then

refreshed themselves with a feast at the charge of the hall. The portraits of the

worthies of the town, of royal and distinguished patrons, adorned the walls, and the

old guild hall preached daily lessons to the townsfolk to uphold the dignity and

promote the welfare of the borough, and good feeling and the sense of brotherhood

among themselves.

The Town Hall, Shrewsbury

We give an illustration of the town hall of Shrewsbury, a notable building and well

worthy of study as a specimen of a municipal building erected at the close of the

sixteenth century. The style is that of the Renaissance with the usual mixture of

debased Gothic and classic details, but the general effect is imposing; the arches

and parapet are especially characteristic. An inscription over the arch at the north

end records:--

"The xvth day of June was this building begonne, William Jones and

Thomas Charlton, Gent, then Bailiffes, and was erected and covered in

their time, 1595."

A full description of this building is given in Canon Auden's history of the town.

He states that "under the clock is the statue of Richard Duke of York, father of

Edward IV, which was removed from the old Welsh Bridge at its demolition in

1791. This is flanked by an inscription recording this fact on the one side, and on

the other by the three leopards' heads which are the arms of the town. On the other

end of the building is a sun-dial, and also a sculptured angel holding a shield on

which are the arms of England and France. This was removed from the gate of the

town, which stood at the foot of the castle, on its demolition in 1825. The principal

entrance is on the west, and over this are the arms of Queen Elizabeth and the date

1596. It will be noticed that one of the supporters is not the unicorn, but the red

dragon of Wales. The interior is now partly devoted to various municipal offices,

and partly used as the Mayor's Court, the roof of which still retains its old

character." It was formerly known as the Old Market Hall, but the business of the

market has been transferred to the huge but tasteless building of brick erected at the

top of Mardol in 1869, the erection of which caused the destruction of several

picturesque old houses which can ill be spared.

Cirencester possesses a magnificent town hall, a stately Perpendicular building,

which stands out well against the noble church tower of the same period. It has a

gateway flanked by buttresses and arcades on each side and two upper storeys with

pierced battlements at the top which are adorned with richly floriated pinnacles. A

great charm of the building are the three oriel windows extending from the top of

the ground-floor division to the foot of the battlements. The surface of the wall of

the façade is cut into panels, and niches for statues adorn the faces of the four

buttresses. The whole forms a most elaborate piece of Perpendicular work of

unusual character. We understand that it needs repair and is in some danger. The

aid of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings has been called in, and

their report has been sent to the civic authorities, who will, we hope, adopt their

recommendations and deal kindly and tenderly with this most interesting structure.

Another famous guild hall is in danger, that at Norwich. It has even been suggested

that it should be pulled down and a new one erected, but happily this wild scheme

has been abandoned. Old buildings like not new inventions, just as old people fear

to cross the road lest they should be run over by a motor-car. Norwich Guildhall

does not approve of electric tram-cars, which run close to its north side and cause

its old bones to vibrate in a most uncomfortable fashion. You can perceive how

much it objects to these horrid cars by feeling the vibration of the walls when you

are standing on the level of the street or on the parapet. You will not therefore be

surprised to find ominous cracks in the old walls, and the roof is none too safe, the

large span having tried severely the strength of the old oak beams. It is a very

ancient building, the crypt under the east end, vaulted in brickwork, probably

dating from the thirteenth century, while the main building was erected in the

fifteenth century. The walls are well built, three feet in thickness, and constructed

of uncut flints; the east end is enriched with diaper-work in chequers of stone and

knapped flint. Some new buildings have been added on the south side within the

last century. There is a clock turret at the east end, erected in 1850 at the cost of the

then Mayor. Evidently the roof was giving the citizens anxiety at that time, as the

good donor presented the clock tower on condition that the roof of the council

chamber should be repaired. This famous old building has witnessed many strange

scenes, such as the burning of old dames who were supposed to be witches, the

execution of criminals and conspirators, the savage conflicts of citizens and soldiers

in days of rioting and unrest. These good citizens of Norwich used to add

considerably to the excitement of the place by their turbulence and eagerness for

fighting. The crypt of the Town Hall is just old enough to have heard of the burning

of the cathedral and monastery by the citizens in 1272, and to have seen the

ringleaders executed. Often was there fighting in the city, and this same old

building witnessed in 1549 a great riot, chiefly directed against the religious

reforms and change of worship introduced by the first Prayer Book of Edward VI.

It was rather amusing to see Parker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury,

addressing the rioters from a platform, under which stood the spearmen of Kett, the

leader of the riot, who took delight in pricking the feet of the orator with their

spears as he poured forth his impassioned eloquence. In an important city like

Norwich the guild hall has played an important part in the making of England, and

is worthy in its old age of the tenderest and most reverent treatment, and even of

the removal from its proximity of the objectionable electric tram-cars.

As we are at Norwich it would be well to visit another old house, which though not

a municipal building, is a unique specimen of the domestic architecture of a

Norwich citizen in days when, as Dr. Jessop remarks, "there was no coal to burn in

the grate, no gas to enlighten the darkness of the night, no potatoes to eat, no tea to

drink, and when men believed that the sun moved round the earth once in 365 days,

and would have been ready to burn the culprit who should dare to maintain the

contrary." It is called Strangers' Hall, a most interesting medieval mansion which

had never ceased to be an inhabited house for at least 500 years, till it was

purchased in 1899 by Mr. Leonard Bolingbroke, who rescued it from decay, and

permits the public to inspect its beauties. The crypt and cellars, and possibly the

kitchen and buttery, were portions of the original house owned in 1358 by Robert

Herdegrey, Burgess in Parliament and Bailiff of the City, and the present hall, with

its groined porch and oriel window, was erected later over the original fourteenth-

century cellars. It was inhabited by a succession of merchants and chief men of

Norwich, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century passed into the family of

Sotherton. The merchant's mark of Nicholas Sotherton is painted on the roof of the

hall. You can see this fine hall with its screen and gallery and beautifully-carved

woodwork. The present Jacobean staircase and gallery, big oak window, and

doorways leading into the garden are later additions made by Francis Cook, grocer

of Norwich, who was mayor of the city in 1627. The house probably took its name

from the family of Le Strange, who settled in Norwich in the sixteenth century. In

1610 the Sothertons conveyed the property to Sir le Strange Mordant, who sold it to

the above-mentioned Francis Cook. Sir Joseph Paine came into possession just

before the Restoration, and we see his initials, with those of his wife Emma, and the

date 1659, in the spandrels of the fire-places in some of the rooms. This beautiful

memorial of the merchant princes of Norwich, like many other old houses, fell into

decay. It is most pleasant to find that it has now fallen into such tender hands, that

its old timbers have been saved and preserved by the generous care of its present

owner, who has thus earned the gratitude of all who love antiquity.

Sometimes buildings erected for quite different purposes have been used as guild

halls. There was one at Reading, a guild hall near the holy brook in which the

women washed their clothes, and made so much noise by "beating their

battledores" (the usual style of washing in those days) that the mayor and his

worthy brethren were often disturbed in their deliberations, so they petitioned the

King to grant them the use of the deserted church of the Greyfriars' Monastery

lately dissolved in the town. This request was granted, and in the place where the

friars sang their services and preached, the mayor and burgesses "drank their guild"

and held their banquets. When they got tired of that building they filched part of the

old grammar school from the boys, making an upper storey, wherein they held their

council meetings. The old church then was turned into a prison, but now happily it

is a church again. At last the corporation had a town hall of their own, which they

decorated with the initials S.P.Q.R., Romanus and Readingensis conveniently

beginning with the same letter. Now they have a grand new town hall, which

provides every accommodation for this growing town.

The Greenland Fishery House, King's Lynn. An old Guild House of the time of

James I

The Newbury town hall, a Georgian structure, has just been demolished. It was

erected in 1740-1742, taking the place of an ancient and interesting guild hall built

in 1611 in the centre of the market-place. The councillors were startled one day by

the collapse of the ceiling of the hall, and when we last saw the chamber tons of

heavy plaster were lying on the floor. The roof was unsound; the adjoining street

too narrow for the hundred motors that raced past the dangerous corners in twenty

minutes on the day of the Newbury races; so there was no help for the old building;

its fate was sealed, and it was bound to come down. But the town possesses a very

charming Cloth Hall, which tells of the palmy days of the Newbury cloth-makers,

or clothiers, as they were called; of Jack of Newbury, the famous John

Winchcombe, or Smallwoode, whose story is told in Deloney's humorous old black

-letter pamphlet, entitled The Most Pleasant and Delectable Historie of John

Winchcombe, otherwise called Jacke of Newberie, published in 1596. He is said to

have furnished one hundred men fully equipped for the King's service at Flodden

Field, and mightily pleased Queen Catherine, who gave him a "riche chain of gold,"

and wished that God would give the King many such clothiers. You can see part of

the house of this worthy, who died in 1519. Fuller stated in the seventeenth century

that this brick and timber residence had been converted into sixteen clothiers'

houses. It is now partly occupied by the Jack of Newbury Inn. A fifteenth-century

gable with an oriel window and carved barge-board still remains, and you can see a

massive stone chimney-piece in one of the original chambers where Jack used to sit

and receive his friends. Some carvings also have been discovered in an old house

showing what is thought to be a carved portrait of the clothier. It bears the initials

J.W., and another panel has a raised shield suspended by strap and buckle with a

monogram I.S., presumably John Smallwoode. He was married twice, and the

portrait busts on each side are supposed to represent his two wives. Another carving

represents the Blessed Trinity under the figure of a single head with three faces

within a wreath of oak-leaves with floriated spandrels.44 We should like to pursue

the subject of these Newbury clothiers and see Thomas Dolman's house, which is

so fine and large and cost so much money that his workpeople used to sing a

doggerel ditty:--

Lord have mercy upon us miserable sinners,

Thomas Dolman has built a new house and turned away all his

spinners.

The old Cloth Hall which has led to this digression has been recently restored, and

is now a museum.

The ancient town of Wallingford, famous for its castle, had a guild hall with selds

under it, the earliest mention of which dates back to the reign of Edward II, and

occurs constantly as the place wherein the burghmotes were held. The present town

hall was erected in 1670--a picturesque building on stone pillars. This open space

beneath the town hall was formerly used as a corn-market, and so continued until

the present corn-exchange was erected half a century ago. The slated roof is

gracefully curved, is crowned by a good vane, and a neat dormer window juts out

on the side facing the market-place. Below this is a large Renaissance window

opening on to a balcony whence orators can address the crowds assembled in the

market-place at election times. The walls of the hall are hung with portraits of the

worthies and benefactors of the town, including one of Archbishop Laud. A

mayor's feast was, before the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act, a great

occasion in most of our boroughs, the expenses of which were defrayed by the

rates. The upper chamber in the Wallingford town hall was formerly a kitchen, with

a huge fire-place, where mighty joints and fat capons were roasted for the banquet.

Outside you can see a ring of light-coloured stones, called the bull-ring, where

bulls, provided at the cost of the Corporation, were baited. Until 1840 our Berkshire

town of Wokingham was famous for its annual bull-baiting on St. Thomas's Day. A

good man, one George Staverton, was once gored by a bull; so he vented his rage

upon the whole bovine race, and left a charity for the providing of bulls to be baited

on the festival of this saint, the meat afterwards to be given to the poor of the town.

The meat is still distributed, but the bulls are no longer baited. Here at Wokingham

there was a picturesque old town hall with an open undercroft, supported on pillars;

but the townsfolk must needs pull it down and erect an unsightly brick building in

its stead. It contains some interesting portraits of royal and distinguished folk

dating from the time of Charles I, but how the town became possessed of these

paintings no man knoweth.

Another of our Berkshire towns can boast of a fine town hall that has not been

pulled down like so many of its fellows. It is not so old as some, but is in itself a

memorial of some vandalism, as it occupies the site of the old Market Cross, a

thing of rare beauty, beautifully carved and erected in Mary's reign, but ruthlessly

destroyed by Waller and his troopers during the Civil War period. Upon the ground

on which it stood thirty-four years later--in 1677--the Abingdon folk reared their

fine town hall; its style resembles that of Inigo Jones, and it has an open

undercroft--a kindly shelter from the weather for market women. Tall and graceful

it dominates the market-place, and it is crowned with a pretty cupola and a fine

vane. You can find a still more interesting hall in the town, part of the old abbey,

the gateway with its adjoining rooms, now used as the County Hall, and there you

will see as fine a collection of plate and as choice an array of royal portraits as ever

fell to the lot of a provincial county town. One of these is a Gainsborough. One of

the reasons why Abingdon has such a good store of silver plate is that according to

their charter the Corporation has to pay a small sum yearly to their High Stewards,

and these gentlemen--the Bowyers of Radley and the Earls of Abingdon--have

been accustomed to restore their fees to the town in the shape of a gift of plate.

We might proceed to examine many other of these interesting buildings, but a

volume would be needed for the purpose of recording them all. Too many of the

ancient ones have disappeared and their places taken by modern, unsightly, though

more convenient buildings. We may mention the salvage of the old market-house at

Winster, in Derbyshire, which has been rescued by that admirable National Trust

for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, which descends like an angel of

mercy on many a threatened and abandoned building and preserves it for future

generations. The Winster market-house is of great age; the lower part is doubtless

as old as the thirteenth century, and the upper part was added in the seventeenth.

Winster was at one time an important place; its markets were famous, and this

building must for very many years have been the centre of the commercial life of a

large district. But as the market has diminished in importance, the old market-house

has fallen out of repair, and its condition has caused anxiety to antiquaries for some

time past. Local help has been forthcoming under the auspices of the National

Trust, in which it is now vested for future preservation.

The Market House, Wymondham, Norfolk

Though not a town hall, we may here record the saving of a very interesting old

building, the Palace Gatehouse at Maidstone, the entire demolition of which was

proposed. It is part of the old residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, near the

Perpendicular church of All Saints, on the banks of the Medway, whose house at

Maidstone added dignity to the town and helped to make it the important place it

was. The Palace was originally the residence of the Rector of Maidstone, but was

given up in the thirteenth century to the Archbishop. The oldest part of the existing

building is at the north end, where some fifteenth-century windows remain. Some

of the rooms have good old panelling and open stone fire-places of the fifteenth-

century date. But decay has fallen on the old building. Ivy is allowed to grow over

it unchecked, its main stems clinging to the walls and disturbing the stones. Wet

has begun to soak into the walls through the decayed stone sills. Happily the

gatehouse has been saved, and we doubt not that the enlightened Town Council will

do its best to preserve this interesting building from further decay.

The finest Early Renaissance municipal building is the picturesque guild hall at

Exeter, with its richly ornamented front projecting over the pavement and carried

on arches. The market-house at Rothwell is a beautifully designed building erected

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