page_title: Architecture of Aylesbury
section_title: County Offices
hierarchical_section_title: Architecture of Aylesbury / 20th century and modernist period / County Offices
caption_attribution_description: English: The Old County Hall in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
context_page_description: The architecture of Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire, reflects that which can be found in many small towns the length and breadth of England. The architecture contained in many of the country's great cities is well recorded and documented, as is that of the numerous great country houses. Frequently the work is by one of England's more notable architects – Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Robert Adam, William Kent or even Quinlan Terry. What is less well known is the local almost vernacular architecture in the market towns, often inspired by the work of the great master architects or the general architectural style popular at the time. England had a middle class long before many other European countries, these bourgeois merchants would often return from a visit to one of the cities, or having seen a glimpse of one of the great country houses then require a replica of what they had seen. A local architect would then be employed to recreate it, within limited financial restraints. Sometimes the patron would merely draw an image of what he required and a builder would then interpret the requirements to the best of his often limited ability.
context_section_description: Circa 1929 it was realised that County Hall, and the office complex behind the Corn exchange was too small for the increasing bureaucracy of Buckinghamshire County Council.  The county architect C. Riley was commissioned to design a large office block in keeping with the perceived architecture of the town.  The resultant County Offices was a three storey building of 17 bays in an almost Second Empire design.  The flat facade is given interest by slight projection of the terminating bays, and a low stone portico at the centre.  On the first floor the centre window, and the windows at the centre of the terminating bays were given pediments. Otherwise the facade beneath a mansard roof is unadorned.  This unremarkable building, completed in 1939, is indistinguishable from the street architecture found in any English city of that era, and adds little to the market town architecture of Aylesbury.  In time the County Offices came themselves to be regarded as the County Hall, as the machinery of the County Court gradually took over the older County Hall in its entirety.  If the architecture of the 1930s County Hall was considered out of keeping with the town, 30 years later came an even more, albeit of greater architectural interest, controversial building - Aylesbury's most recent and present County Hall.
caption: County Offices later known as County Hall
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