36, High Street

The site, on the east side of the Market Square, was previously occupied by the garden of the Old Vicarage. The first town hall in the site, described as "a rather unattractive stone building", was completed in 1814. By the 1840s, the earlier building had become dilapidated and civic leaders decided to replace it with a new structure. The new building was designed by James Tacy Wing of Bedford in the neoclassical style, built by William Twelvetrees of Biggleswade in brick with a stucco finish at a cost of £800 and was completed in 1844. The design involved a near symmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto the Market Square. The central section was fenestrated by three round headed…