The building was commissioned as a market hall for the town. It was designed in the
neoclassical style, built in brick with a
cement render finish and was completed in 1830. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto the High Street. The building was originally arcaded on the ground floor, so markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. The central section of three bays was fenestrated by three tall
casement windows with
window sills on the first floor. The outer bays featured round headed doorways with
fanlights on the ground floor and
niches on the first floor. On the ground floor, the bays were separated by
pilasters supporting a
cornice. Above the first floor, there was a tall
entablature, and a
pediment with a
roundel containing a
coat of arms in the
tympanum. Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor which was used to accommodate the local grammar school. In 1862, a group of local businessmen formed a company, to be known as the Billericay Town Hall Company to acquire the building and operate it as a public hall. The assembly room was then made available for public meetings, and part of the ground floor was used as a police station. In March 1883, a public meeting was held at which the
Great Eastern Railway presented proposals for the construction of the
Shenfield–Southend line. In 1934 most of the
Billericay Rural District was reconstituted as
Billericay Urban District and, in 1938, the assembly room became the council chamber of Billericay Urban District Council. The police service relocated to new premises further south along the High Street, on the corner with London Road, at that time. The building served as the local civil defence headquarters during the
Second World War. The urban district was renamed
Basildon Urban District in 1955, although the council continued to be based at Billericay Town Hall and the adjoining offices in Billericay until the early 1960s when it moved into new premises in Basildon itself. The building remained empty and deteriorating from the late 1970s until the late 1990s. After
Essex County Council sold the building to a developer in 1999, a major programme of refurbishment works costing £500,000 was undertaken. The works enabled the building to be converted into a restaurant in 2000. after which the restaurant was rebranded as "Wildwood". ==References==