County Hall, Cambridge

County Hall is a former municipal building, now used for student accommodation, in Hobson Street, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. It is a Grade II listed building.[1]

County Hall, Cambridge
LocationCambridge, Cambridgeshire
Coordinates52.2069°N 0.1216°E / 52.2069; 0.1216
Built1913
ArchitectHerbert Henry Dunn
Architectural style(s)Neoclassical style
Listed Building – Grade II
Designated2 November 1972
Reference no.1265198
Location of County Hall, Cambridge in Cambridgeshire

History

Originally the old shire house on Market Hill had been used as the local facility for dispensing justice.[2] However, following the implementation of the Local Government Act 1888, which established county councils in every county, county leaders decided that enhanced facilities were required to accommodate a meeting place for Cambridgeshire County Council.[3] The site selected had previously been occupied by an old Methodist chapel which had been vacated in October 1913.[4][5][6]

The new building, designed by Herbert Henry Dunn in the Neoclassical style,[7] was completed in 1914.[2] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing Hobson Street with the end bays slightly projected forwards; there were round-headed windows on the ground floor and sash windows on the first and second floors interspersed with tall Ionic order columns which supported an entablature carved with the words "County Hall 1913".[1] A memorial commemorating council staff who died in the First World War was erected in the building after the war.[8]

By the late 1920s the county council had also found the Hobson Street building too small and chose to move to the shire hall at Castle Hill in 1933.[2] The building in Hobson Street continued to be used by the county council, inter alia, as the County Planning Office[2] and as the County Record Office,[9] until it was acquired by Christ's College, Cambridge in 1986.[10] It was subsequently converted to student accommodation, based on designs by Lyster, Grillet and Harding, and renamed the Todd Building, after Lord Todd, a Nobel laureate.[11] The conversion works included the installation of a smoked-glass drum containing a spiral staircase to provide additional access for students[12] and alterations to the rooms on the second floor to create a lecture theatre which was named the Plumb Auditorium, after Sir John Plumb, a historian.[10] Todd and Plumb had both become fellows of Christ's College, in Todds's case in 1944[13] and in Plumb's case in 1946.[14]

References
  1. Historic England. "County Hall, Cambridge (1265198)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  2. Roach, J P C (1959). "'The city of Cambridge: Public buildings', in A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 3, the City and University of Cambridge". London: British History Online. pp. 116–122. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  3. "Local Government Act 1888". Legislation.gov.uk. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  4. "Ordnance Survey Map". 1903. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  5. "Our history". Wesley Methodist Church, Cambridge. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  6. "The County Council is to purchase Hobson Street Wesleyan Chapel". Hobson Street Scrapbook. 15 March 1912. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  7. Pevsner, Nikolaus (1970). The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire. London: Penguin. p. 232. ISBN 978-0300205961.
  8. "County Hall Staff, World War I". Imperial War Museum. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  9. Leader, Damian Riehl; Morgan, Victor; Searby, Peter (1988). A History of the University of Cambridge: 1750-1870. Cambridge University Press. p. 748. ISBN 9780521350600.
  10. "A short history" (PDF). Christ's College, Cambridge. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  11. "Christ's College". Pastscape. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  12. "Former County Hall". Capturing Cambridge. Retrieved 1 September 2019.
  13. "Biography: Lord Todd". The Nobel Prize. Retrieved 6 October 2020.
  14. "Obituary:Sir John Plumb". The Guardian. 22 October 2001. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
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