Building record 1185800000 - TOWN HALL, MARKET SQUARE

Grade II+. Former town hall and court. Built c 1783, incorporating the staircase of the earlier Town Hall of 1685 which was situated to the north of the present building, altered C20. Red brick in Flemish bond, large hipped plain-tile roof: Rectangular main block with semicircular apsidal projection to left and wings to rear left and rear right. 2-storey, 5-window range. Wide central doorway approached by 2 stone steps, with C20 double-leaf doors, fanlight, round-arched head and C20 semicircular iron canopy on wrought-iron brackets. 24-pane sash windows to ground and 1st floors with limestone sills. Ground floor windows are recessed in blank arcade with elliptical arched heads. Wood lintels to ground floor windows, flat-arched heads to 1st floor windows. Rendered plinth, stone cill bands within arches of blank arcade, impost bands to arcade, storey band and dentilled brick eaves. Roof oversails right side wall and has central square, lead-covered oak bell turret with illuminated clock face inserted 1882 and copper ball finial, surmounted by painted copper Swan of Buckingham, the borough crest, which was under restoration at time of survey. 2-storey, rendered apse to left hand side, around which blank arcading and storey band are continued. Within arches curved tripartite sashes at basement level and 12-pane sashes at mezzanine level. Central 6-panel door to basement in pier rising full height of apse and originally continued by a chimney stack. 2-storey wing to rear left has giant niche beside main block, now partly blocked, framing 1st floor window lighting main stair. Right side elevation of main block facing Castle Street has deep timber cove below oversail on moulded rail with dentilled cornice. 2-storey wing to rear right has 3-bay elevation facing Castle Street with central 6-panel double-leaf doors approached by 3 stone steps, with overlight and flat-arched head, flanked by tripartite sashes with similar heads. Blank window to 1st floor above door flanked by 24-pane sashes, all with flat-arched heads. Plinth, cellar windows either side of steps to door, storey band and dentilled brick eaves. Sources: Books and journals
Elliott, D J, 'Buckingham The Loyal Borough' (1975), pp72-77;
Harrison, J T, 'Historical Buckingham' (1909), p27;
Pevsner, N, & Williamson, E, 'The Buildings of England: Buckinghamshire' (1994), p195 (B2).