Hendon Town Hall


Hendon Town hall is a municipal building in Hendon, London. It is a Grade II listed building.

History

Construction and development

In the late 19th century Hendon Local Board held its meetings at the Hendon Union Workhouse in the Burroughs. The new building, which was designed by Thomas Henry Watson in the Pre-Renaissance style for Hendon Urban District Council and was built by Kingerlee and Sons, was officially opened by the local mayor in November 1901.
Hendon Urban District was given municipal borough status in 1932 and the building continued to be the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Hendon until the borough was merged with the Municipal Borough of Finchley and several urban districts to form the London Borough of Barnet with its new headquarters at Hendon Town Hall in 1965.
Margaret Thatcher made her first speech as Prime Minister at the town hall in May 1979 and she returned to unveil a statue entitled the Family of Man by Itzhak Ofer in 1981. Finchley had never had its own town hall and Hendon Town Hall was sometimes referred to as "Finchley Town Hall" in the 1980s.
Later, Barnet Trades Union Council was reformed at the town hall in 2008.

Barnet House

Although meetings of the Barnet London Borough Council have continued to be held at Hendon Town Hall, many of the council departments, that had previously been located at disparate locations around the council area, moved to Barnet House in Colindale, just over a mile to the west of the town hall, in 2018.