The County Hall is a municipal building complex in Pegs Lane, Hertford, Hertfordshire. The building, which is the headquarters of Hertfordshire County Council, is a Grade II* listed building.[1]
| County Hall, Hertford | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Location | Hertford, Hertfordshire |
| Coordinates | 51°47′27″N 0°04′53″W / 51.7908°N 0.0813°W |
| Built | 1939 |
| Architect | Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce |
| Architectural style(s) | Neo-Georgian style with Scandinavian elements |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
| Designated | 9 September 1996 |
| Reference no. | 1268807 |
  Location of County Hall, Hertford in Hertfordshire | |
History
editThe original Shire Hall for Hertfordshire was located in Fore Street in Hertford.[2] After deciding that Shire Hall was too restricted for future expansion, county leaders chose to procure a new county headquarters: the site they selected was open land located just off Pegs Lane.[3]
Construction of the new building began in spring 1937.[4] It was designed by Charles Holloway James and Stephen Rowland Pierce in the Neo-Georgian style with Scandinavian elements,[5] built by C. Miskin & Son of St Albans and opened without ceremony in summer 1939.[4] The first full council meeting in the building was held on 6 November 1939, when Queen Elizabeth sent a message of regret that the outbreak of the Second World War had prevented her fulfilling an earlier promise to formally open the building.[6]
The design for the building involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing the Bullocks Lane; the left section of three bays featured a portico with four full height piers supporting a frieze with the words "Tertium iam annum regnante Georgio VI haec curia aedificata est" ("This building was constructed during the third year of the reign of George VI"); the portico contained a doorway flanked by square windows on the ground floor and it contained tall sash windows in a recess on the first floor; there was a copper-clad cupola at roof level; the right section contained a loggia of eleven bays on the ground floor and seven sash windows on the first floor.[1] The principal room was the council chamber which was contained in a curved structure which jutted out of the main building to the west.[7]
The Hertfordshire Local Defence Volunteers was formed at County Hall, to provide a secondary line of defence in case of invasion by the forces of Nazi Germany and other Axis powers during the Second World War, in 1940.[8] The Hertfordshire Film Archive was established at the building in 1978.[9] Sculptures of two deer designed by Stephen Elson were erected outside County Hall, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the building, in 1989.[10]
Works of art in County Hall include a portrait of the Lord Chancellor, John Somers, 1st Baron Somers, by Godfrey Kneller[11] and a portrait of the local member of parliament, William Plumer, by Thomas Lawrence.[12]
References
edit- ^ a b Historic England. "County Hall Including Terraces and Fountain, Hertford (1268807)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
- ^ Historic England. "Shire Hall, Hertford (1268930)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
- ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1923. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ a b "Hertford Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan" (PDF). East Hertfordshire Council. p. 122. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ Nikolaus Pevsner; Bridget Cherry (1977). Hertfordshire. Yale University Press. pp. 186–8. ISBN 978-0-300-09611-8.
- ^ "Herts New County Hall: County Council's First Meeting at New Home - Messages from H.M. the Queen". Herts and Essex Observer. Bishop's Stortford. 11 November 1939. p. 3. Retrieved 27 March 2024.
- ^ "Hertfordshire County Hall, Hertford: the council chamber seen from the north-west". Royal Institute of British Architects. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ Robinson 1978, p. 130.
- ^ Foster and Sheppard 2000, p. 249
- ^ Shields, Pamela (2005). Hertfordshire A-Z. The History Press. ISBN 978-0750942508.
- ^ Kneller, Godfrey. "John Baron Sommers of Evesham (1650–1716), Lord Chancellor (1697–1700)". Art UK. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
- ^ Lawrence, Thomas. "William Plumer (1736–1822), of Gilston Park, MP for Hertfordshire (1768–1807)". Art UK. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
Sources
edit- Foster, Janet; Sheppard, Julia (2000) British Archives: A Guide to Archive Resources in the UK, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0333735367
- Robinson, Gwennah. (1978) Barracuda Guide to County History, Vol III: Hertfordshire. Chesham: Barracuda Books. ISBN 0-86023-030-9.