Old Town Hall, Great Dunmow

The town hall was commissioned as a guildhall following the incorporation of the borough in 1555.[2][3][4] It was designed in the Elizabethan style, built using timber-framing with plaster infill, and was completed in around 1578.[5][6][7]

The first floor was then re-built in the mid-19th century.[8] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of two bays facing onto the Market Place. The left hand bay, which was narrow and recessed, contained a doorway with a rectangular fanlight on the ground floor, and a small bi-partite window on the first floor. The right hand bay was fenestrated by a timber framed window on the ground floor, and by a prominent oriel window on the first floor, which was jettied out over the pavement and extensively decorated by pargeting. The right hand bay was surmounted by a gable containing a bargeboard and a clock face. At roof level, there was a cupola, containing a bell,[9] which was surmounted by a pyramid-shaped roof and a weather vane. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor.[1]

The assembly room became the venue for public meetings in the town and also served as the regular meeting place of the local masonic lodge.[10] However, the borough council, which had also met in the town hall, was abolished under the Municipal Corporations Act 1883.[11] The building was then acquired by a syndicate of investors for commercial use in 1888.[6] Meanwhile, Foakes Hall, which was financed by a legacy from Alice Foakes, was erected in Stortford Road and was officially opened in September 1934; it subsequently became the regular meeting place of Great Dunmow Parish Council.[12] By the second half of the 20st century, the old town hall was serving as the offices of a firm of estate agents.[13][14][15][16]