The first town hall in the town, erected in the centre of the Market Place in 1761, was a rectangular two-storey building with open arches on the ground floor, a meeting hall on the first floor and a clock tower with a
cupola on top. It was demolished to make way for the second town hall which was built on the same site. with a gilded angel
finial. but it ceased to be the local seat of government when the
Federation of Stoke-on-Trent was formed in March 1910. The old town hall was used as a public library for much of the 20th century. and although there were proposals to demolish it in the 1960s, it survived and had become a recreation centre by the 1990s. The gilded angel was restored and re-gilded by Bailey International Steeplejacks in
Macclesfield in December 2000. From 2003 the building housed
Ceramica, a visitor centre showing the artistic and industrial heritage of the Potteries. The project was funded by the
Millennium Commission. Part of the budget had to be spent in dealing with dry rot found in the building. The exhibition attracted fewer visitors than anticipated, and after Stoke-on-Trent City Council withdrew funding for day-to-day running, it closed in March 2011. The building remained empty until 2015, when the modern extension built as part of the Ceramica exhibition was demolished and the Old Town Hall was converted into a
sixth form college of
Haywood Academy, a project sponsored by
Steelite International. ==Notes==