Stanhope Town Hall

In 1846, the parish leaders in Stanhope, led by the Rector, the Reverend William Darnell, decided to commission a town hall for the parish and to finance it by public subscription. The site they selected, on the north side of Front Street in the west end of the town, was held in copyhold by the Diocese of Durham, and the Bishop of Durham, Edward Maltby, donated it to the parish. The new building was designed in the Victorian style, built in rubble masonry and was completed in 1849. The design involved a main block of five bays facing onto Front Street. It was fenestrated by a mixture of bi-partite and tri-partite mullioned windows on the ground floor and by five cross-windows on the first…