Ledbury Market Hall

In the early 17th century, a market trader, John Phillips, launched an initiative to demolish an existing row of buildings in Shoppe Row and to erect a market hall in their place.[3] The building, which has been attributed to the master mason, John Abel, was designed in the Tudor style using half-timbered construction and was completed in 1617.[4][5][6] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the High Street; the building was open on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with a storeroom for grain on the first floor. The first floor, which was jettied out over the pavement, was supported by 16 oak posts and was accessed by a wooden staircase at the north end of the building.[7] The first floor was fenestrated, on the west side, by three six-light mullioned and transomed windows and the half-timbering was executed in a Herringbone pattern.[2]

The Royalists defeated the Roundheads in a minor skirmish in the Market Place in April 1645 during the English Civil War.[8] The store room on first floor was converted for civic use in the early 19th century,[9] enabling it to be used as a town hall and also as a venue for theatrical performances: early performers included the actor, Ira Aldridge, who appeared in a series of melodramas in lare January and early February 1831.[10]

Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, visited the building during a tour of the county in April 1957.[11][12] The building continued to be used for meetings of Ledbury Town Council and for wedding ceremonies until 2004 when these uses were discontinued because of the lack of disabled access.[13] An extensive programme of restoration works, which involved temporarily raising the building by 600 millimetres (24 in) so that the oak posts could be restored, was completed in 2006.[14]

• Grade I listed buildings in Herefordshire