Thanks to Helen Kirk, Hon. Sec. of the Forest of Galtres Society, and Jane Bentley, Clerk to Easingwold Town Council, Local information. Thanks once again to John Shaw. Photographs by the author. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL, or cite it in a print one. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

The Hall in Easingwold Market Place was designed by Edward Taylor (1831-1908), and built in 1864. This was after numbers of influential local gentlemen had formed a Joint Stock Company to remedy various shortages and inconveniences then being experienced in the little market town just twelve miles from York (Yorkshire Gazette, 9 April 1864: 9). It was listed by John Ward Knowles as one of the architect's earliest works.

Gable ends.

The accommodation comprised a butchers’ market on the ground floor, and a large hall above (54 x 35 feet) suitable for magistrate and county courts, together with a committee room and other conveniences: the first event was a grand public ball. Designed for two distinct functions, the ground floor had several entrances and small windows, while access to the upper floor was by the doorway in the south gable and staircases; the upper floor has taller windows, and both gable ends are more decorative in arrangement than the side walls. Local societies met there, upstairs of course, and in 1906 there was a miniature rifle range in it, probably on the ground floor. It stands in the middle of the large open Market Place, and is at present occupied by a printing company serving the community.

Details of the little clocktower with steeple and weathervane, the finials on the gables below the clock face, and the ironwork bracket and lamp.

The building is usually called Easingwold Town Hall, but was described as a Public Hall in the newspaper report of its opening (as above, Yorkshire Gazette, 9 April 1864: 9), The fabric is mainly red brick, with yellow brick used with red, as shown below, in the arches of windows and doorways.

Yellow brick detailing over a window.

Related Material

Bibliography

Knowles, J. W. York Artists. KNO-3-6, Vol 2: 33 (of 91). Archives of York Explore Library. Probably written c.1925.

Pevsner, Nikolaus. Yorkshire: the North Riding. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966 (currently being revised).

Yorkshire Gazette. 9 April 1864: 9, col. 2.


Created 10 October 2020