Exterior photo: Robin Forster
We are delighted that the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and Historic England, has accepted our application to upgrade the former Deptford Town Hall’s listing to Grade II*. A notable local landmark, with a characterful clock tower, it features rich stone carvings by major sculptors, and the listing includes the dwarf wall and railings to the north. The building, for the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford, with sculpture by Henry Poole, Albert Hodge, and the firm of T and E Nichols, was designed in an Edwardian Baroque style by the significant practice Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards, who had already won competitions to design Cardiff Town Hall and Westminster Central Hall. It was built by HL Holloway of Deptford between 1903-1907 and opened in 1905. The building was planned around the central stair hall and the staircase is very fine. Read the listing.
The building is one of the purpose-built town halls commissioned and completed immediately following the 1899 London Government Act which outlined sixteen existing parishes or districts that should become boroughs including the parishes of Battersea, Camberwell, Chelsea, Fulham, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Islington, Kensington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Paddington, St Marylebone and St Pancras, the districts of Poplar and Wandsworth and the ancient parliamentary borough of Westminster.
Deptford Town Hall is part of a significant group of buildings including the main Goldsmiths College building and its chapel, first constructed as the Royal Naval School in 1843-1845, and the Grade II-listed public baths, constructed in 1895-98.
The Victorian Society has recently celebrated the work of the Town Hall’s architect, Edwin Rickards, with the publication of the first monograph on this prolific but short-lived architect part of our Victorian Architects series. The book, written by Tim Brittain-Catlin, and wonderfully illustrated by specially commissioned photographs by Robin Forster, is available from the Victorian Society here. You can also download and listen to the author’s talk on Edwin Rickards here.
Interior of former Deptford Town Hall. Photo: Robin Forster
