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Tunstall Town Hall

group of buildings of architectural interest in Tunstall, Staffordshire, England

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ26579129 ↗
Source-derived summary

Tunstall Town Hall is a municipal building in the High Street in Tunstall, Staffordshire, England. The structure, which was the meeting place of Tunstall Urban District Council, is a Grade II listed building.

History

The first town hall in Tunstall was a small neoclassical style town hall in the middle of Tower Square which was completed in 1816. After the first town hall became inadequate, the local board of health decided to procure a more substantial structure: the site chosen was the western end of the market hall, which had itself been designed by George Thomas Robinson in the neoclassical style and completed in 1855. The market hall had to be reduced in size to accommodate the new town hall.

The new building was designed by local architect Absalom Wood in the Renaissance style, built in red brick with terracotta dressings at a cost of £14,000 and completed in 1885. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto the High Street; the central section of five bays, which slightly projected forward, featured arched openings on the ground floor, to allow access to shops and to the market hall, the central opening being flanked by brackets supporting a balcony. There were round headed windows on the first floor flanked by Corinthian order pilasters supporting an entablature bearing the inscription "Peace, Happiness, Truth, Justice AD MDCCCLXXXV" and a heavily modillioned cornice. The central bay featured an attic floor with an oculus containing a Star of David flanked by pilasters supporting an open pediment; the outer bays in the central section were also pedimented. Internally, the principal rooms were the central hall, the courtroom and the council chamber.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Tunstall Town Hall” as group of buildings of architectural interest in Tunstall, Staffordshire, England. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Tunstall, Town and Hall.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1816, 1855, 1885—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Tunstall, Town and Hall providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Tunstall Town Hall”, the useful work is to connect “group of buildings of architectural interest in Tunstall, Staffordshire, England” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q26579129. Authority coordinates are 53.058, -2.210. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1816, 1855 and 1885.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Tunstall Town Hall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.