The first municipal building in the town was a town hall on the Bull Ring, facing the street called Hightown, which was designed in the
Gothic Revival style and completed in 1844. It was owned by the
lord of the manor, James France of
Bostock Hall. The building accommodated a butter market on the ground floor and an assembly room on the first floor. The town hall was gifted to the local board by its owners, the France-Hayhurst family, in 1887. In 1897, the council decided to commission a new technical school and public library for the town as part of celebrations for the
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The site selected, which was occupied by a private residence known as Naylor House, was donated to the council by the industrialist and
member of parliament,
Sir John Brunner. The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Councillor Edward Howard Moss of
Cheshire County Council on 2 October 1897. It was designed in the
Renaissance style, built with
terracotta facings and officially opened by the
Earl of Crewe in November 1898. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto Lewin Street; the third bay from the left featured a three-stage tower with a round headed doorway with a
keystone in the first stage, a semi-circular
balcony and a
cross-window in the second stage and section with a
Diocletian window and an
oriel window surmounted by a
dome making up the third stage. The first bay, which was gabled, featured a round headed window on the ground floor and a cross-window on the first floor while the other bays were fenestrated by cross-windows. Terracotta panels were installed on the front of the building to illustrate the town's industrial history and there was a central
lantern at roof level. Internally, the principal rooms were the classrooms together with a library and a reading room. The remainder of the old town hall was subsequently demolished in the early 1970s and the area redeveloped. The Victoria Buildings ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged
Congleton Borough Council was formed in 1974 and, instead the Victoria Buildings, as Middlewich Town Hall, became the meeting place of
Middlewich Town Council. ==References==