County Hall, Morpeth


County Hall is a municipal building in Morpeth, Northumberland. It is the offices and meeting place of Northumberland County Council. The current building was completed in April 1981, after the county hall was moved from the old county hall in Newcastle. A statue of a Viking Warrior stands outside the building and was moved there from Doxford Hall.

History

The previous Northumberland County Hall was situated within an exclave of Northumberland within the county borough of Newcastle upon Tyne from 1889 to 1974; the area became part of the county of Tyne and Wear in 1974 and was thus extraterritorial to the county of Northumberland.
In the late 1970s Northumberland County Council decided that they wanted a meeting place within the territorial limits of the county. The building in Morpeth was therefore purpose-built as the meeting place of Northumberland County Council and completed in April 1981.
The statue of a Viking Warrior that stands outside County Hall was sculpted by Margaret Wrightson in 1925 and placed in the grounds of Doxford Hall; it was relocated to Morpeth at that time of the construction of County Hall.