page_title: Rochdale Town Hall
section_title: Heritage status and function
hierarchical_section_title: Rochdale Town Hall / Heritage status and function
caption_attribution_description: Rochdale Town Hall, in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England.
context_page_description: Rochdale Town Hall is a Victorian-era municipal building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. It is "widely recognised as being one of the finest municipal buildings in the country", and is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. The Town Hall functions as the ceremonial headquarters of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council and houses local government departments, including the borough's civil registration office.
  Built in the Gothic Revival style at a cost of £160,000, it was inaugurated for the governance of the Municipal Borough of Rochdale on 27 September 1871. The architect, William Henry Crossland, was the winner of a competition held in 1864 to design a new Town Hall. It had a 240-foot clock tower topped by a wooden spire with a gilded statue of Saint George and the Dragon, both of which were destroyed by fire on 10 April 1883, leaving the building without a spire for four years. A new 190-foot stone clock tower and spire in the style of Manchester Town Hall was designed by Alfred Waterhouse, and erected in 1887.
  Art critic Nikolaus Pevsner described the building as possessing a "rare picturesque beauty".
context_section_description: The Town Hall was listed at Grade I on 25 October 1951. Such buildings are defined as being of "exceptional interest, sometimes considered to be internationally important".  In February 2001, it was one of 39 Grade I listed buildings, and 3,701 listed buildings of all grades, in Greater Manchester.  Within the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale, it is one of only three Grade I listed buildings, and 312 listed buildings of all grades.
  
  Although the majority of local government functions take place in Rochdale's Municipal Offices building, Rochdale Town Hall continues to be used for cultural and ceremonial functions. For instance it is used for the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale's mayoralty, civil registry, and for formal naturalisation in British Citizenship ceremonies.
caption: Rochdale Town Hall during the winter of 2009–2010
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