Limehouse Town Hall
Being a huge city with a long history, it’s perhaps no surprise that London has so many important old buildings falling into disrepair and decay. English Heritage currently lists 93 edifices on its ‘Buildings at risk register’ for London - we’ll look at some more of those next week.
But this week, at least, it’s largely good news, with the announcement that Limehouse Town Hall has been saved with a grant of £80,000. The Grade 2 listed building had been gently rotting on the At Risk Register since 2003, its elegant Italianate exterior being gradually eroded by traffic fumes from the Commercial Road. According to a spokesman from English Heritage, the cash injection will see the rejuvenated building ‘put the heart and soul back into Limehouse and enable local people to share in and appreciate its fascinating history’.
Limehouse Town Hall opened in March 1881, reflecting the growing commercial success of the area. ‘Lime Hurst’ as it was originally known, had been a hamlet on the Thames from the 14th century (and possibly much earlier) when it had become a site for lime kilns. Lime mortar was used in building, and the Limehouse ovens burned huge amounts of chalk (brought upriver from Kent) to produce the stuff. By the 1700s, Limehouse was a busy shipping community and it trebled in size between 1610 and 1710.
By the early 1700s the hamlet was a suburb of London (the city in its turn snaking east along the river). In 1767, the Limehouse Cut (canal) was dug to link the River Thames to the River Lea (and thus allow cargoes to be moved by barge north of London). Predictably, Limehouse quickly grew - its commercial importance boosted by the opening of the Regent’s Canal Dock in 1820. This allowed ships to offload their cargoes of timber and coal onto barges, for their onward journey along the Regent’s Canal.
A busy town needs local government and a town hall, and Limehouse got its own in 1881. Building started in 1878, JH Johnson working to a plan by A&C Harston. The grand building cost £10,000, which would get you a couple of square metres of the luxury flats in modern-day Limehouse. 130 years ago, that sum bought ‘an ornate white brick palazzo, with stone dressings, arched moulded windows, channelled angle piers, a central pediment and strong projecting cornices’. The edifice was to be used as the parish’s Vestry Hall, a catch-all building used for the area’s public business, the local courts and entertainments … the real heart of the community’s civic life in fact. The town fathers envisaged the hall becoming ‘a great civic centre for the Docklands’.
And for the first 90 years, Limehouse Town Hall was the hub of local government, though the reorganisation of local government, with the creation of Tower Hamlets Council in 1965 from the old boroughs of Bethnal Green, Stepney and Poplar, was to sound the death knell of that. In November 1950, the then Prime Minister and local MP, Clement Attlee, came to his home turf, making one of the last speeches of his premiership at Limehouse Town Hall. The occasion was a celebration of the centenary of the Amalgated Engineering Union.
And the association with Labour continued with a new role for the hall. From 1975 to 1986, it became the National Museum of Labour History - a collection of records, artefacts and iconography, such as Trade Union banners, illustrating the development of the Labour movement. During this period the building received visits from a number of senior political figures, including Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The museum earned a global reputation and, by 1983, its collection had expanded to occupy the entire building. However, in 1986 a shortage of funds led to its relocation to Manchester.
From 1987-2001 the building was taken back into local authority use, becoming first Wapping Neighbourhood Centre and later a winter shelter for homeless people and a training centre run by the Bridge Trust and the Prince’s Trust.
The new project will start in spring 2007, beginning with repairs to the internal and external fabric, and then creating a collection of local resources, among them workspaces and ‘incubator units’ for local creative businesses; the creation of a Living History Space; and a large flexible space for community events, with commercial catering facilities.
Paddy Pugh, head of advice and grants for the London Region at English Heritage professed himself ‘delighted that we have been able to secure the future of this historic landmark’ but warned that Limehouse was only one of five London town halls languishing on the At Risk Register (though Limehouse was in the worst condition). Next week we look at some other buildings at risk.