Old Town Hall

The Old Town Hall on North Street is a handsome Victorian building that now serves as an events venue and is Grade II listed. The building's Italianate design gives it a more continental character than most civic halls of its era — the ground-floor arcade of round arches and the carefully proportioned upper floors reflect the ambition Wolverhampton had for its public buildings in the second half of the nineteenth century.

It is most interesting as a piece of street architecture and as context for the city's civic history: this was the engine room of Wolverhampton's Victorian growth, when the town was expanding rapidly on the back of manufacturing wealth. Worth a look from the outside on any walk through the city centre.

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A story
The Old Town Hall was built in 1869 to designs by Wolverhampton-born architect George Bidlake. It replaced a medieval guildhall on the same site and served as the seat of local government until a new civic centre was built in the 1970s. Its Italianate façade, with a distinctive loggia of round arches on the ground floor, made it one of the more accomplished Victorian civic buildings in the region.

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