Early history The first municipal building in the town was a
medieval guildhall which dated back to the early 14th century. Following the siege of Wallingford in 1645, a skirmish in the
English Civil War at which many of the town's buildings were damaged or destroyed by the attacking
roundhead forces, the borough council decided to demolish the old guildhall. The site selected for the new building, to the south of St Mary-le-More Church, was purchased from a local landowner, James Leaver. The new building was designed in the
neoclassical style, built using
timber-frame construction techniques with a
stucco finish and was completed in 1670. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage facing onto the Market Square; the ground floor was arcaded with a series of
Doric order columns, so that markets could be held. On the first floor there was a central
Venetian window with a
wrought-iron balcony and, in the attic, there was a smaller Venetian style
dormer window. The side elevations stretched back five bays on each side and were fenestrated by
sash windows with
architraves and
cornices. Above, there was a
modillioned cornice surmounted by a
hipped roof with a
weather vane. Internally, the principal rooms were the main chamber and the committee room, both on the first floor. Markets were held on the ground floor until the
Corn Exchange was built to the east of the town hall in 1856. Alterations were carried out in 1887, as part of the celebrations for the
Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, to remove the attic and to create a
coved ceiling in the main chamber. In 1933, the rear two bays were infilled at ground floor level and extended out to the west on both floors. An external flight of steps was added in front of the extension, leading up to a doorway on the first floor which gave access to the extension.
Recent history Queen Elizabeth II visited the town hall and spoke to the crowd from the balcony during a visit in November 1956 to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the granting of the town's charter. 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
South Oxfordshire District Council was formed in 1974. The main chamber subsequently became the meeting place of Wallingford Town Council, while the ground floor became the home of the local
tourist information centre. In October 2009, a blue plaque was installed on the west side of the town hall to commemorate the life of
Sir William Blackstone, the author of
Commentaries on the Laws of England, who sat in the town hall as Recorder of Wallingford, and, in 2011, plaques were placed on the front of the town hall to honour
The Rifles, which, as the
Royal Berkshire Regiment, had received the Freedom of the Borough in 1944, and
RAF Benson, which had received the Freedom of the Borough in 1957. In 2014, the town hall was the location for the filming of a scene from
The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm starring
Harry Hill. Works of art in the town hall include a portrait by
Gainsborough Dupont of Sir William Blackstone, a portrait by
Thomas Lawrence of
Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor and a portrait by
Anthony van Dyck of Archbishop
William Laud. There is also a portrait by
George Dunlop Leslie and
James Hayllar of
Queen Victoria, painted to celebrate her Golden Jubilee. ==See also==