The first municipal building in Clitheroe was a moot hall built on Church Street in about 1610. It contained prison cells with
barrel vaulted ceilings which were cut out of solid rock and were used to accommodate petty criminals on their way to imprisonment in
Lancaster Castle. In the early 19th century borough officials decided to demolish those parts of the old moot hall which were above ground and to erect a new structure on the same site. The new building was designed by
Thomas Rickman in the
Gothic Revival style, built in
ashlar stone and was completed in 1820. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto the Church street; on the ground floor, there was an arched doorway flanked by
colonettes in the left hand bay and
lancet windows in the other bays. and the town became a
municipal borough with the building as its headquarters in 1835. It was at the town hall that
David Shackleton was elected unopposed as the
Labour Member of Parliament in the
1902 Clitheroe by-election; he was only the third Labour MP ever to be elected to the
UK Parliament. The town hall continued to serve as the headquarters of the borough council for much of the 20th century but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged
Ribble Valley District Council was established in 1974. The district council was initially based at offices in
Clitheroe Castle before moving to purpose-built offices in Church Walk in the late 1970s. Clitheroe Town Council, which was established in 1974, chose to establish its offices on the opposite side of the road in the former borough treasurer's office, No. 9 Church Street, rather than using the old town hall. An extensive programme of refurbishment works was carried out in the late 1980s, enabling the town hall to be integrated into the
Clitheroe Library: the council chamber was subsequently used as an events venue for lectures and concerts ==See also==