Municipal Buildings, Oldbury
The Municipal Buildings are based on the north side of Halesowen Street in Oldbury, West Midlands, England. The structure served as the headquarters of Oldbury Borough Council. History. In the late 1880s the local board of health decided to procure municipal buildings for the town: the site they selected, on the corner of Halesowen and Freeth Street, had previously been occupied by the old chapel of St Nicholas which, after having become very dilapidated, had been demolished. It was intended that the new facility would adjoin an existing public hall located just to west of the chosen  site. The new building was designed by Wood and Kendrick of West Bromwich in the Renaissance style, built by John Dallow and Sons of Blackheath in brick with terracotta facings and was officially opened as "the Public Buildings" in 1891. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Freeth Street; the second bay from the left featured an arched doorway flanked by pilasters supporting an entablature. The other bays contained mullioned windows on the ground floor and round headed windows on the first floor. At roof level the second and fourth bays featured shaped gables containing  small mullioned windows. The building also featured a prominent tower at its southeast corner with a clock, an octagonal cupola and a spire. Internally, the principal rooms were the council chamber, which was in the tower corner on the first floor, and the public library, which was on the ground floor. The clock in the tower was designed and manufactured by Clement Pass, a clockmaker from Oldbury. The public offices were accessed using the Freeth Street entrance but the public library was accessed by way of a separate entrance in Halesowen Street. Following population growth, largely associated with the local  railway carriage works and iron manufacturing, the area became an urban district with the municipal buildings as its headquarters in 1894. A war memorial, to commemorate the lives of local service personnel who had died in the First World War was established outside the town hall. It initially took the form of a Mark IV tank which had been manufactured by Oldbury Carriage Works and donated by the War Office. A permanent war memorial, in the form of a cenotaph, was erected by John Dallow and Sons and unveiled by General Sir Ian Hamilton on 4 November 1926. The council  was advanced to the status of municipal borough with the municipal buildings as its headquarters in 1935. The municipal offices continued to serve as the headquarters of the borough for much of the 20th century but ceased to be local seat of government when the new Warley County Borough was formed at Smethwick Council House in 1966. Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, which was formed in 1974, was initially based at West Bromwich Town Hall but moved to modern facilities at the new Sandwell Council House on the east side of Freeth Street on Oldbury in 1989. The municipal buildings in  Oldbury went on to serve as the local offices of Citizens Advice.