Padiham Town Hall

Padiham town Hall was officially opened on the 26th of February 1938 by Herbert Morrison, the leader of London County Council (which was replaced by Greater London Council in 1965) and the grandfather of labour politician Peter Mandelson.

A need for a new Civic Centre

In the decades leading up the 1930’s the town had been undergoing a rapid increase in population and size due to the burgeoning cotton industry and in the early 30s it was decided by local civic leaders, including the former Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, Lord Shuttleworth of Gawthorpe Hall, that Padiham needed a splendid new purpose-built town hall to reflect its up-and-coming position in the world as a prosperous hub of industry.

It was unanimously thought that the new town hall had to be grand and imposing, so the architectural firm Bradshaw, Gass & Hope (https://www.bghbolton.co.uk/) of Bolton were hired.

(BGH have a long and interesting history, the famous architect Sir George Grenfell-Baines worked with the company for several years in the 30’s, his firm Grenfell-Baines and Hargreaves was founded with my grandad, Thomas Gorton-Hargreaves)

Design and construction

The architects chose a Neo-classical style to create the timeless building that you see now, boldly constructed in solid horizontal and vertical lines of Accrington red brick bonded in the Flemish style, which is when a course of alternating ‘header’ and ‘stretcher’ bricks are laid (basically short then long then short, see image below)

To reinforce the impact of the building a stone pediment bearing the towns crest, capping four slender Corinthian pillars, dominates the front of the building and, as you would expect to find on any civic building, a fine clock tower sits upon the green slate roof, (for some reason though the clock tower seems to remind people of the town hall from the film ‘Back to the Future’, so it’s sometimes known as this!)

The Wonder Mill

Before the town hall was constructed the site, right next to the river Calder, was home to a utilitarian and rather ugly looking cotton mill, locally known as the “Wonder Mill”, but officially named Bridge End Cotton Mill and one of over 20 mills that existed in Padiham.

In most Northern English towns cotton mills were usually situated next to watercourses like the Calder for two reasons, one was utilisation of the moving water to power water wheels, and secondly because cotton production requires damp air, an RH (Relative Humidity) of 70 to 80% is ideal, in order to stop the cotton becoming too dry and brittle to work with.

Of course Northern England is infamously damp because of the prevailing westerly winds, so places like Padiham have always been perfect for producing cotton textiles, it is the main reason why mill towns exist here and how the Northwest became the powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain.

Renovation and Refurbishment

The proximity of the town hall to the Calder brought with it a major problem, this being that it is a low-lying part of town prone to occasional flooding. This infamously happened on Boxing Day in 2015 when the river broke its banks leading to floodwaters of up to 3ft deep in places, as you can see in this video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=531r-I_lzOw.

As well as businesses and homes being flooded out so too was the town hall, it wasn’t until 2018 that the Grade 2 listed building re-opened after extensive repairs and flood resilience work carried out by building contractors B&E Boys of Bacup (https://www.beboys.co.uk/project/padiham-town-hall/)

In Jan 2020 a £331,000 grant from Lancashire Enterprise Partnership was approved to renovate the whole building including the roof, this was part of wider improvements to the town centre. Part of the scheme included decorating, improving and generally modernising the first floor rooms of the building, which had been empty for several years.

Room and Power

Today the Town Hall is used for many different purposes and has become an invaluable asset to Padiham. Sequence, Latin and other dances are regularly held on the sprung maple dance floor in the ballroom, which was once known as the ‘best dance floor outside of Blackpool’, over the 40’s weekend last year a ‘Ballroom Blitz’ event was held there, the local Slimming World and other groups meet there too.

Elsewhere in the building Padiham archives (https://padiham.org.uk/padiham-archive/) hold a large and impressive display of all sorts of memorabilia, and on the right hand side of the building sits Padiham Library.

Upstairs, in the previously empty rooms, space is available to hire complete with Wi-fi and all mod-cons; https://roomandpower.co.uk/ (named after an innovative scheme first conceived in the Northwest of England whereas working space in textile mills was leased out to small businesses who could also take advantage of the mills power supply, literally Room & Power)

All in all Padiham Town Hall has an interesting and illustrious past and it looks likely that its future will be bright too, why not come down and see for yourself this year at one of the several events which will be held there including Painting Padiham (https://padiham.org.uk/event/paintingpadiham2023/) on May 13th and Padiham on Parade on June the 24th and 25th (https:/www.padihamonparade.org.uk/)

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