Patrick Comerford
Colchester in Essex has one of the finest and most imposing town halls in England with an imposing Victoria Tower. The town hall was designed in the Edwardian Baroque by the London architect John Belcher (1841-1913) and was built in 1897-1902.
Colchester Town Hall is the headquarters of Colchester City Council and is a Grade I building. It has been described by the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘a triumphant expression of Colchester’s civic pride, the embodiment of the borough’s history and tradition’. Pevsner says Belcher completed the design ‘with more braggadocio than anyone.’
The first building on the site, a moot hall, was built in 1277. It was remodelled in 1374 but was demolished in 1843. The second building on the site, which was designed by John Blore and John Raphael Rodrigues Brandon in the neoclassical style with six full-height Doric order pilasters, was completed in 1845. After it was found to be unstable, Colchester’s civic leaders decided to build a new building on the site in the late 19th century.
The new town hall was designed by John Belcher in the Edwardian Baroque style. Construction began in 1897, and it was opened by a former Liberal Prime Minister, Archibald Primrose, Earl of Rosebery, in May 1902.
Belcher designed one of the first neo-baroque buildings in London, the Chartered Accountants Hall (1890), and many of his later commissions, including Colchester Town Hall, are outstanding examples of lavish Edwardian municipal architecture.
Belcher was born in Southwark, the son of John Belcher (1816-1890), also an architect, and was articled with his father. He spent two years in France from 1862, and became a partner in his father’s practice in 1865. His first work was the Royal Insurance building in London (1865) in a French Renaissance style. He also designed the Mappin & Webb building (1870) in Gothic style on the corner of Queen Victoria Street and Poultry, and was joint architect with his partner John James Joass of Whiteleys department store.
Belcher’s design of the Chartered Accountants Hall (1890) for the Institute of Chartered Accountants was one of the first neo-baroque buildings in the City of London. It featured extensive sculptural work by Sir Hamo Thornycroft, Harry Bates and others. Belcher and Joass also he designed Electra House (1900) in the City. His major commissions outside London include Colchester Town Hall (1898–1902) and the Ashton Memorial (1906-1909), Lancaster. Both of these are in the Baroque style, typical of the lavish creations of the Edwardian era.
His other works include: Southwark Church, Camberwell New Road (1877), now the Greek Orthodox Cathedral; and the headquarters of the Royal Zoological Society (1910-1911), Regent’s Park, London. Belcher was the president of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1904-1906. A deeply religious man, he was a prominent member of the Catholic Apostolic Church and was an angel (priest) at the Southwark Church in Camberwell from 1908 until his death.
Belcher’s design for Colchester Town Hall involves a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the High Street. The central section features an arched doorway with the borough coat of arms in the tympanum and flanked by Doric order pilasters.
There is an ornate balcony above the doorway and there three pairs of huge engaged Corinthian order columns spanning the first and second floors each carrying a broken pediment.
The main façade at third-floor level are six life-sized statues of figures associated with the history of Colchester and carved a by a local stonemason LJ Watts, four on the south elevation facing the High Street, and two on the east side facing West Stockwell Street:
• Eudo Dapifer, involved in building Colchester Castle and steward to William the Conqueror;
• Thomas Lord Audley, town clerk of Colchester (1514), MP for Essex (1523-1538) and Lord Chancellor of England (1533-1544);
• William Gilbert (1544-1603), physician, physicist and natural philosopher;
• Archbishop Samuel Harsnett (1561-1631), headmaster of Colchester Royal Grammar School, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge and Archbishop of York (1629-1631);
• Boudica who captured Colchester when she led a revolt against Roman Rule in 60-61 CE;
• Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons (899-924), who expelled the Danes from Colchester.
The clock tower or Victoria Tower at the east end of the town hall was built to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. It was funded by James Noah Paxman, the founder of local engineers, Davey, Paxman & Co.
At the top of the tower, 59 metres (192 ft) above the High Street, is a bronze figure of Saint Helena, the patron saint of Colchester, holding the True Cross. Councillor Arthur Jarmin travelled as far as Italy to locate a suitable statue of the saint, but could only find one of the Virgin Mary, which then had to be modified locally.
Below the statue of Saint Helena, four bronze ravens by Francis Carruthers Gould represent the portreeve who ran Colchester’s medieval port. Below them, four allegorical figures, also carved by LJ Watts, represent engineering, military defence, agriculture and fishery.
The chiming clock with five bells was placed in the tower with another 15th-century bell that is thought to have hung in the original moot hall. The clock is known locally as Charlie, after Charles Hawkins, who paid for it. It was manufactured by Smith & Sons of Derby. The bells were by John Warner & Sons.
The interior includes an imposing marble staircase with a seated statue of Queen Victoria and a monument to the Colchester Martyrs. The first floor includes a mayoral suite, a committee room and the Council Chamber with a painted domed ceiling by Charles Baskett illustrating the 12 months of the year and stained glass windows by Clayton and Bell depicting the Roman history of Colchester.
The second floor has a large assembly hall, the Moot Hall, which annually hosts the Oyster Feast, Mayor Making event and other civic functions. The pipe organ with three manuals was designed and built by Norman and Beard and was donated by the local MP, Sir Weetman Pearson.
Works of art in the town hall include a painting depicting a spotted dog, with the Golden Horn in the background, by Otto Hoynck; a painting depicting merrymaking in a Flemish village by David Vinckboons; a painting depicting Dutch Protestants fleeing religious persecution by the Duke of Alba and seeking permission to live in Colchester in 1570 by the local artist, Harry Becker; a portrait of the former Speaker of the House of Commons, Charles Abbott, Lord Colchester, by James Lonsdale; and a portrait by John Lucas of a former local MP, Charles Gray Round.
The building was supplemented with additional accommodation to the west of the main site in 1965, and was later connected by a tunnel under West Stockwell Street to new facilities at Angel Court, to the east of the main site, in 1988.
Today, the Town Hall is a prestigious building, with lavish, decorated rooms, and accommodates a wide range of large-scale to intimate events, including weddings, Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties, murder mystery evenings, meeting and conferences.
