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Municipal building in Bury, Greater Manchester, England From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bury Town Hall is a municipal building in Knowsley Street, Bury, Greater Manchester, England. The town hall, which is the headquarters of Metropolitan Borough of Bury, is a locally listed building.[1]
Bury Town Hall | |
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![]() Front view of Bury Town Hall, February 2008 | |
Location | Knowsley Street, Bury |
Coordinates | 53.5902°N 2.3001°W |
Built | 1954 |
Architect | Reginald Edmonds |
Architectural style(s) | Neo-Georgian style |
Until the mid-20th century, Derby Hall on Market Street accommodated the local council offices, but was no longer fit for purpose.[2] The new building was designed, following an architectural competition, by Reginald Edmonds in the Neo-Georgian style in the 1930s.[3] Construction was delayed by the Second World War and it was only officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 22 October 1954.[4][5][6] The design incorporated an assembly hall which became known as the Elizabethan Suite.[7]
The Whitehead Clock Tower, a memorial to Walter Whitehead, a local surgeon, dedicated in June 1914[8] and George Frampton's 'cheering fusilier', a tribute to those soldiers who had died in the Second Boer War, erected in 1920,[9] are both structures which predate the current town hall and stand in Whitehead Garden to the south of the building.[10] The garden itself was a gift from Sidney and Katherine Whitehead of Stormer Hill in Bury to commemorate the lives of seven people who were killed in Chapel Street by a V-1 flying bomb on 24 December 1944 during the Second World War.[11][12]
The town hall was the headquarters of the County Borough of Bury until 1974 when it became the headquarters of the enlarged Metropolitan Borough of Bury.[13] A three-dimensional relief of the enlarged borough's coat of arms, designed by Diana Childs, was installed in the council chamber in the mid-1970s.[14] The Prince of Wales visited the town hall for a lunch meeting with the civic dignitaries on 14 December 1977.[15]
In July 1992 Queen Elizabeth II chose the town hall as her destination on her inaugural journey on the Manchester Metrolink; she had lunch in the building on her arrival.[16][17]
The building had to be closed for weddings and other public events in July 2020 after part of the ceiling on the second floor collapsed.[18]
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