Old Town Hall, Richmond


The Old Town Hall, Richmond on Whittaker Avenue in Richmond, London is a municipal building which from 1893 to 1965 was the town hall for the Municipal Borough of Richmond.

History

The site chosen for the building was occupied by the Castle Hotel in Richmond, which was purchased by Sir John Whittaker Ellis, the local Member of Parliament, and donated by him in 1888 to Richmond's vestry. The clock, which juts out from the main frontage of the building, was installed by the Leeds firm William Potts & Sons Ltd. The new building was designed by W J Ancell in Elizabethan Renaissance styleand opened by the Duke of York in 1893.
It was severely damaged by a fire-bomb on 29 November 1940 but, after restoration, was reopened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother in 1952.
When the municipal boroughs of Richmond, Twickenham and Barnes were combined in 1965 to form the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, York House in Twickenham became the seat of government for the new borough. The building was refurbished as part of scheme to redevelop the riverside area in 1988.
Although some of the building's ground floor has been leased to the retail sector, the former town hall was retained for municipal use and now contains the borough's reference library, its local studies collection, the Museum of Richmond, an art gallery and meeting rooms.