1860 – Bishops Auckland Town Hall, Durham

Architect: J.P. Jones

0006.jpg

Bishop Auckland Town Hall is a Grade II* listed building and was completed in 1862 overlooking the town’s market place. The town hall was designed by John Philpott Jones for Bishop Auckland Town Hall and Market Company Ltd. The money to build it was raised privately by the issue of shares in the company. It was then bought by the local board of health in 1888, which went on to become Bishop Auckland Urban District council in 1894.

It was abandoned and then condemned for demolition in the 1980s, however after a local campaign to save the building, it was fully restored in the early 1990s. The building now houses Bishop Auckland’s main public library, a theatre, an art gallery, tourist information centre and a café-bar.