page_title: William Swinden Barber
section_title: Town Hall, Brighouse, 1898
hierarchical_section_title: William Swinden Barber / Independent works / Town Hall, Brighouse, 1898
caption_attribution_description: English: Town Hall - Thornton Square, Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England. This was built on the site of the old Malt Kiln.
context_page_description: William Swinden Barber FRIBA, also W. S. Barber or W. Swinden Barber, was an English Gothic Revival and Arts and Crafts architect, specialising in modest but finely furnished Anglican churches. The Barber churches often had crenellated bell-towers. He was based in Brighouse and Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. At least 15 surviving examples of his work are Grade II listed buildings including his 1875 design for the Victoria Cross at Akroydon. An 1864 portrait by David Wilkie Wynfield depicts him in Romantic garb, holding a flower. He served in the Artists Rifles regiment in the 1860s alongside Wynfield and other contemporary artists.
context_section_description: This is a Grade II listed building In Thornton Square, Brighouse, West Yorkshire. This work was a development by Barber of the existing Town Hall at Brighouse, West Yorkshire. It was originally designed by John Lord junior as the Municipal Offices, to be used as an annexe to the old town hall (now the Civic Hall; see above). It opened on 16 March 1887. In 1898 Barber was employed to do more work of unknown nature on this building. One possibility is that he was connected in some way with the chairman's chair in the Council Chamber. It had a carved reredos in the style of the late 1890s, and Barber was known to have expertise in this type of piece. The Listing description describes it thus: "Chairman's chair has carved reredos behind with canopy over with pediment and drop finials." In 2010 the Council sold the property, the chairman's chair was dismantled, and there is now a dental practice in the building.
   Media related to Town Hall, Brighouse at Wikimedia Commons
caption: Town Hall, Brighouse
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