Witney Town Hall

The first town hall in Witney was built in the Market Square in 1514.[2] The borough courts held hearings in the building from the mid-16th century and it was used for social events by the 17th century.[2] It was arcaded on the ground floor to allow markets to be held and an assembly room with was established on the first floor.[2] A village lock-up for holding petty criminals was installed in the arcaded area in the early 18th century and a horse-drawn fire engine was installed in the same area in the mid-18th century.[2]

Civic leaders decided to replace the town hall in the early 1780s. The new building was designed in the neoclassical style, probably by Sir William Chambers,[3] built in ashlar stone extracted from a quarry at Black Bourton by masons, James Gulliver and William Harris, and was completed in 1786.[2] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto the Market Square: the bays were divided by Tuscan order columns supporting the first floor structure and the meeting room on the first floor featured a large bay window facing onto Langdale Gate.[4]

The town hall became the main meeting place for vestry meetings in the late 18th century.[2] However, after the area was advanced to the status of urban district in 1895,[5] the new civic leaders decided to hold their meetings in the Corn Exchange, rather than the town hall.[2][lower-alpha 1] Once the local borough courts ceased operating in 1925, the town hall fell vacant.[2] Ownership of the building passed to a body known as the Town Hall Charity in 1929,[4][8] and, following the change of ownership, alterations, which involved filling in the left hand arcade, were carried out to a design by Thomas Rayson in 1930.[2] The work also included installation of public toilets on the ground floor, the fitting of a new staircase and the removal of the bay window on the first floor.[2]

Following the local government re-organisation in 1974,[9] which saw the abolition of Witney Urban District Council, the new parish level body, Witney Town Council, chose to refurbish the town hall at a cost of £15,000 and made the building its main meeting place.[2][10] These works also saw the removal of the public toilets on the ground floor and the creation of a town clerk's office.[11]

• Grade II* listed buildings in West Oxfordshire