| Nottingham Council House | |
|---|---|
 Nottingham Council House, Old Market Square | |
 Interactive map of the Nottingham Council House area | |
| General information | |
| Type | Municipal Headquarters |
| Architectural style | Neo-Baroque |
| Location | Nottingham, England,Old Market Square, Nottingham NG1 2DT |
| Coordinates | 52°57′12″N01°08′55″W / 52.95333°N 1.14861°W /52.95333; -1.14861 |
| Construction started | 1927 |
| Completed | 1929; 97 years ago (1929) |
| Client | Nottingham Corporation |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Thomas Cecil Howitt |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Official name | Council House, Exchange Buildings and adjoining shops and bank |
| Designated | 4 February 1988 |
| Reference no. | 1270582 |
Nottingham Council House is thecity hall ofNottingham, England. The 200 feet (61 m) high dome that rises above the city is the centrepiece of theskyline and presides over theOld Market Square, which is also referred to as the "City Centre". It is aGrade II* listed building.[1]
The Council House was commissioned to replace the formerNottingham Exchange. It was designed byThomas Cecil Howitt in theNeo-Baroque style and built between 1927 and 1929.[2]
Housed within the belfry, is the affectionately-named 'Little John' hour bell – the deepest toned clock bell in the United Kingdom,[3] weighing over 10 tonnes (10 t)[4] – whose strike can be heard for a distance of 7 miles (11 km).[5]
The foundation stone (behind the left-hand lion as you approach the building) was laid by Alderman Herbert Bowles (Chairman of the Estates Committee), on 17 March 1927. The total cost of the building at the time was £502,876 (equivalent to £38,620,000 in 2023).[6] By the time the bill was finally cleared in 1981, the total including interest was £620,294 (equivalent to £47,630,000 in 2023).[6] The building was officially opened by the Prince of Wales (laterKing Edward VIII and subsequently theDuke of Windsor) on 22 May 1929.[7]
The building has staged many high-profile occasions withroyalty,statesmen and women, and stars of the stage and screen. Both theFA Cup in 1959,[8] and theEuropean Cup in 1979[9] and 1980,[10] have been held aloft from its balcony.[11]
SinceNottingham City Council relocated councillors' offices toLoxley House in 2010, the Council House is seldom used for day-to-day administrative functions.[12] Since April 2011, the building also serves as the chiefRegister Office for Births, Marriages and Deaths in the city.[13]
The Council House and Exchange Buildings (to the rear) are constructed ofPortland stone from the same quarry used bySir Christopher Wren forSt Paul's Cathedral in London.[14]
The terrace overlooking the Old Market Square has eight massive columns, above which, are 21 figures representing the activities of the council, also modelled byJoseph ElseFRBS, the Principal of theNottingham School of Art from 1923 to 1939. Thefrieze behind depicts traditional local crafts such as bell founding, mining and alabaster carving.[15]
The interior of the building is elaborately decorated:[16]
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The most striking visual element of the building, and in itself an iconic symbol of the city, is the dome. An ornatecupola stands on the apex of the dome.[1] The top of thecupola is 200 feet (61 m) above the Old Market Square below.[17]
To the rear of the clock face is theclock mechanism, which was manufactured and installed by William W. Cope of theCopeclockmaking family.[18] The dial is 9 feet (2.7 m) in diameter and sits 150 feet (46 m) above ground level. There is only one dial on the west front of the building. The clock mechanism contains a pendulum 13 feet (4.0 m) long with a period of 4 seconds, and the movement is controlled by a double three-legged gravity escapement.[19] The clock is still wound by hand once per week.[20]
Four bells provideWestminster Chimes on the quarter hours. The hour bell has been named 'Little John' since the building opened. The bell was cast in 1928, by the world-famousbellfoundersJohn Taylor & Co. ofLoughborough. At 10 long tons 7 cwt 0 qr 27 lb (23,211 lb or 10.528 t) in weight, 'Little John' is the fourth-heaviest founded byJohn Taylor & Co. and the sixth-heaviest in theBritish Isles.[3] The E♭ tone is the deepest, for a non-swinging clock bell in the British Isles.[3] The new chimes and strike were not universally popular and following complaints from members of the public about them ringing throughout the night, the council agreed in July 1929 that the chimes should not strike after 11.00pm until 6.15am, and from September the strike was also suspended at night between 11.00pm and 7.00am.[21]
The ground floor is predominantly an upmarket fashion-dominated shopping mall – now called 'The Exchange' in honour of theNottingham Exchange – having had an image makeover in 2005. The original name of Exchange Arcade is still used by many local people however. Retailing space was included in the design to fund the corporation's construction of the building, during theGreat Depression and remained under council control until sold in 1985 and redeveloped as a shopping centre.[22]
This part of the building has been in private hands since that time, and is currently owned by a pension fund. Each shop has its own basement showroom or storage facilities, deliveries being made via an underground roadway, served by a vehicular lift on Cheapside. This service area was originally the fresh produce hall, and received natural light via pavement lights in the floor of the arcade above. The locations of those lights can still be seen, marked by the 1985-vintage terracotta tile strips which replaced them, interspersed between the York stone paving slabs. The paved areas were replaced in 2014 with identical York stone.[23]
Painted murals underneath the Council House dome feature:[24]
Each mural was the work of local artistNoel Denholm Davis. The artist used local celebrities as models. Thus T. Cecil Howitt himself appears in the guise of William the Conqueror's surveyor, andNotts County F.C. goalkeeperAlbert Iremonger asLittle John. The inscription around the base of the dome reads: "The Corporation of Nottingham erected this building for counsel and welcome, and to show merchandise and crafts".The condition of these murals has deteriorated in recent years, largely through the ingress of water. The Robin Hood mural was particularly severely damaged in this way. In June 2018 Nottingham City Council finished a complete restoration of the damaged murals in a process which took about three months.[24]
Much of the external statuary is by Joseph Else (1875–1955), Principal of theNottingham School of Art (now part ofNottingham Trent University). Else was responsible for the famous lions guarding the entrance, for the frieze above the Ballroom windows (representing ancient local industries such asbellfounding andalabaster) and for the figures in the principal façade's pediment (depicting the arts and public service). A pub overlooking the Square is now named after Else.[15]
Created byJoseph Else, the twoart-deco lions each weigh 2 tonnes (2.0 t) and stand guard on either side of the entrance steps. They are similar in design to the lions used to publicise theBritish Empire Exhibition of 1924/25.Joseph Else named them, 'Agamemnon' and 'Menelaus', after the elder son and younger son of KingAtreus ofMycenae, fromGreek mythology. Alternativecolloquial names are, 'Leo' (Left) and 'Oscar' (Right).[15][25] Thecolloquialism, 'Meet you by the lions' (often the left lion), became part of the local dialect from the beginning of their existence, and is in fact, frequently demonstrated by the sight of people meeting and greeting nearby on a regular basis.[26]
These groups were created by Joseph Else and three former students of the School of Art. All the sculptors were born and raised in Nottingham.[15]
A scathing criticism came fromNikolaus Pevsner in hisBuildings of England: Nottinghamshire (published in 1951);[2]
"Not much can be said in defence of this kind of neo-Baroque display at a date when theStockholm Town Hall was complete and a style congenial to the C20 established. Wren has to answer for much, once the connection between Greenwich and this dome (via the Old Bailey?) is noted. The Ionic columniation is no more inspiring or truthful than the interiors. The only positive interest lies in the plan of the building. Its centre is a shopping arcade of great height with a glass roof, and shops run all along the ground floor on the N and S sides".
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