County Hall, Morpeth

County Hall is a municipal building in Morpeth, Northumberland. It is the offices and meeting place of Northumberland County Council. The current building was completed in April 1981, after the county hall was moved from the old county hall in Newcastle. A statue of a Viking Warrior stands outside the building and was moved there from Doxford Hall.

County Hall, Morpeth
County Hall
County Hall
Location within Northumberland
General information
AddressMorpeth, Northumberland
CountryUnited Kingdom
Coordinates55.1536°N 1.6841°W / 55.1536; -1.6841
Completed1981
Design and construction
ArchitectModern style

History
Statue of Viking warrior

For much of the 20th century County Hall was situated within an exclave of Northumberland (in the Moot Hall precincts) within the county borough of Newcastle upon Tyne; the area became part of the county of Tyne and Wear in 1974 and was thus extraterritorial to the county of Northumberland.[1] After deciding that this arrangement was unsatisfactory, county leaders chose to procure a new purpose-built county headquarters within the territorial limits of the county: the site selected in Morpeth had previously been agricultural land.[2]

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother on 6 April 1979.[3][4] It was designed in the modern style and was opened on 21 April 1981.[5][6] The design for the three-storey building involved continuous bands of glazing with red brick above and below: Pevsner described it as a "spreading building of informal style in brick".[7]

A statue of a Viking Warrior, which had been sculpted by Margaret Wrightson in 1925 and placed in the grounds of Doxford Hall, was relocated to Morpeth at that time of the construction of County Hall.[8][9] Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duchess of Northumberland had lunch at County Hall on 26 July 2001.[10][11]

In October 2014 county leaders announced proposals to move the county headquarters to Ashington.[12] However, after a change in political leadership, the new county leaders announced, in May 2017, that the proposals would be abandoned.[13] Instead a phased programme of refurbishment works were announced with a project to repair the external fabric of the building approved in February 2018, a project to repair back-of-house office areas approved in November 2018 and a project to repair the reception area approved in March 2020.[14]

References
  1. Historic England. "County Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne (1024938)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  2. "Ordnance Survey Map". 1967. Retrieved 18 October 2020.
  3. "A special woman with a special place in our hearts". Northern Echo. 1 April 2002. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  4. "Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother during a visit to Morpeth and Ashington 6 April 1979, looking at a model of the new council offices in Morpeth". Chronicle Live. 24 July 2013. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  5. "Northumberland County Council to spend £17m on HQ revamp". Hexham Courant. 25 January 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  6. "No. 48579". The London Gazette. 10 April 1981. p. 5337.
  7. Pevsner, Nikolaus; Richmond, Ian Archibald; Grundy, John; Ryder, Peter; McCombie, Grace; Welfare, Humphrey (1992). Northumberland. Yale University Press. p. 114. ISBN 978-0300096385.
  8. "Bloody and brutal history celebrated with our cheerful little Viking statue". Morpeth Herald. 23 February 2014. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  9. "Viking Warrior". Public Monuments and Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 30 April 2018. Retrieved 29 April 2018.
  10. "Council ordered to replace trees planted for Queen Mother following investigation". Chronicle Live. 21 March 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  11. "County Hall: Remember the Royal visit?". Morpeth Herald. 23 March 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  12. "Northumberland County Council to move base to Ashington". BBC. 7 October 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  13. "Multi-million pound plans to move Northumberland County Council headquarters quashed". ITV. 18 May 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
  14. "Plans for plush new reception at Northumberland's County Hall due for approval as part of multimillion-pound revamp of council HQ". Northumberland Gazette. 2 March 2020. Retrieved 14 November 2020.
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