Leyburn Town Hall

The first municipal building in Leyburn was a tollbooth in the Market Place; it was primarily used for the collection of market rents and dated back to the grant of a charter for a fortnightly fair by King Charles II to the lord of the manor, the 6th Marquess of Winchester, in 1684.[2] By the mid-19th century the tollbooth had become somewhat antiquated,[3] and the then lord of the manor, the 3rd Lord Bolton of Bolton Castle, decided to rebuild the structure.[4]

Construction work on the new building started in 1856.[5] It was designed in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone at a cost of £2,000 and was completed in 1857.[6] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the Market Place; the central bay featured a doorway flanked by brackets supporting a cornice. The other bays on the ground floor and all the bays on the first floor were fenestrated by sash windows and, at roof level, there was a deep parapet.[7] Internally, the principal rooms were the assembly room on the first floor, which was used for petty session hearings, and the magistrates' office; there were also two flats, each with a living room and a bedroom.[8]

In the late 19th century, large social events were regularly held in the assembly hall; such events included a series of annual balls organised by the local company of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment in the late 1880s.[9] A memorial in the form of a celtic cross, commissioned to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the First World War, was erected outside the town hall in 1920[10][11] and, during the Second World War, the 11th Battalion of the North Riding Home Guard established a shooting range inside the building.[12]

Although the ground floor was converted to retail use and was occupied by a local homewares business, Wray & Co., in the 1970s,[13] the assembly room continued to be made available for community events: the Wensleydale School held a debate, which was attended by the future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, there in September 2018.[14]