Aylesbury Town Hall
Aylesbury Town Hall is a municipal building in the Market Square, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England. The town hall, which was the meeting place of Aylesbury Borough Council, is a Grade II* listed building. History. The building was originally commissioned as a corn exchange by a consortium of local businessmen, who formed a venture known as the Aylesbury Market Company, which was established with capital of £18,000 under an Act of Parliament in 1863. The site chosen for the building had been occupied the White Hart Inn, a coaching inn. The White Hart Inn was acquired and demolished  in 1864. The new building was designed by David Brandon in the Jacobean style, built in red brick with stone dressings and completed in 1865. The design involved a near-symmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto the Market Square; the right hand three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured a wide carriageway in the middle bay flanked by full height columns with a bay window on the first floor and a parapet and a gable containing an oculus above. The outer bays in the right hand section featured pedestrian archways flanked by full height columns with a mullion  window on the first floor and a parapet above. The left hand bay, which was barely visible, was topped with a mansard roof. The Aylesbury Market Company got into financial difficulties caused by the agricultural depression in the 1870s. After the area had been designated an urban district in 1894, the new council, which had decided to establish a new town hall, acquired the market rights to hold markets (and ownership of the corn exchange) from the company in 1901. The council established municipal offices on the first floor and went on to secure municipal borough status, with the town  hall as its headquarters, in 1917. The interior of the town hall was badly damaged in a fire, which was attributed to arson, on 14 March 1962 and the rear façade was subsequently rebuilt but without any of the original decoration. Aylesbury Vale District Council, which was formed in 1974, established modern offices on Gateway Road, while Aylesbury Town Council established its own offices at 5 Church Street.