Park Street/Potter Street Junction, Worksop, Notts.

Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 8 Sep 2016

The Town Hall, formerly the Corn Exchange, is believed to have been designed - in Italian style - in 1851 by Isaac Charles Gilbert, a Nottingham architect. (In passing, during the mid-1860s Watson Fothergill, the well-known Nottingham architect worked for 18 months as an assistant to Isaac Charles Gilbert in Clinton Street, Nottingham). In the past, monthly County Court sessions were also held here and Magistrates’ Court sessions on alternate Wednesdays. The local Board of Health meetings were held here too. The building changed from being the Corn Exchange to the Town Hall in 1895 when the local Board of Health was replaced by the Worksop Urban District Council. At that time the top floor of the building contained a spacious assembly room that was used for the court sessions, but also for concerts, lectures, etc. At the rear of the building, a butchers’ shambles could once be found and the market was here held in front of the building until the opening of Queen’s Buildings in 1981. The front of the building (facing Potter Street, on the pedestrian's right) was renovated between 1983-85 during which time the town hall steps were removed, the front arches converted into windows and the main entrance to the new town hall was moved to the side of the building facing its courtyard/car park.

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