Bray Town Hall
| Bray Town Hall | |
|---|---|
Halla Baile Bhré | |
 Bray Town Hall | |
  Bray Town Hall Location within Ireland | |
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Tudor Revival style |
| Address | Main Street |
| Town or city | Bray |
| Country | Ireland |
| Coordinates | 53°12′02″N 6°06′40″W / 53.2006°N 6.1112°W |
| Completed | 1884 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect(s) | Thomas Newenham Deane and Guy Dawber |
Bray Town Hall (Irish: Halla Baile Bhré) is a municipal building in Main Street, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. The building which used to be the offices and meeting place of Bray Urban District Council now accommodates a fast-food restaurant.
History[edit]
The first municipal building in the town was a market house in the north part of Bray.[1] In the late 1870s, Lord Brabazon, and his wife, Mary, Lady Brabazon, who lived near-by at Killruddery House, decided to commission a more substantial building for the town. The site they selected was at the corner of Killarney Road and Vevay Road.[2] A fountain, with a sculpture of a rampant wyvern holding a shield depicting the coat of arms of the Brabazon family, was unveiled at the front of the site in 1881.[3] The new building was designed by Thomas Newenham Deane and Guy Dawber in the Tudor Revival style, built by Wardrop & Son in red brick with mock timber framing at a cost of £6,359 and was completed in time for a meeting of the town commissioners on 19 May 1884.[4]
The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of three bays facing onto Main Street. On the ground floor, the central bay featured a segmental shaped opening with iron gates, while the outer bays contained pairs of lancet windows with iron grills. The first floor was fenestrated by three prominent half-timbered oriel windows, surmounted by gables containing heraldic carvings in bas-relief. At roof level, there was a two-stage octagonal fleche with clock faces in the first stage and louvres in the second stage. The long side elevations were arcaded and open on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with a series of half-timbered gables containing casement windows installed on the first floor. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber on the first floor: it featured an elaborate timber roof, two finely carved chimney pieces and a series of colourful stained glass windows.[5]
In 1899, the town commissioners were replaced by an urban district council, with the town hall becoming the offices of the new council.[6] The Irish Catholic fraternal organisation, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, used the town hall from 1911 and the local branch of the paramilitary group, the Irish Citizen Army, formed in 1913, also met there.[7] The ground floor of the building continued to be used for weekly markets until the 1940s.[8] The Bray Heritage Centre, established in the town hall in 1985, was based there until the centre relocated to the old courthouse in 1993.[9][10]
An extensive programme of refurbishment works was undertaken by Noonan Construction in the early-1990s. Following the refurbishment, Bray Urban District Council continued to occupy the council chamber on the first floor, while McDonald's operated a fast-food restaurant on the ground floor from 1997.[11] The first floor continued to be occupied by the council until 2002, when its successor body, Bray Town Council, was formed at the newly-opened Civic Offices in Main Street.[12][13] In 2014, the council was dissolved and administration of the town was amalgamated with Wicklow County Council in accordance with the Local Government Reform Act 2014.[14][15]
References[edit]
- ^ "McDonald's, Market Square, Bray, County Wicklow". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Bray Town Hall". County Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Brabazon Monument, Market Square, Bray, County Wicklow". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Gems of Architecture". 18th–19th Century History. 1 January 2009. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "The Concept and Design of Bray Town Hall". County Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898". 2nd revised edition of the statutes. 1909.
- ^ Flynn, Arthur (2004). Bray and North Wicklow Gateway to the Garden. Cottage Publications. p. 42. ISBN 978-1900935371.
- ^ "USA Today names McDonald's in Bray 'city' one of the coolest in the world". The Daily Edge. 6 March 2013. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Bray Cualann Historical Society". County Wicklow Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Bray History and Heritage". RTÉ. 1985. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "McDonalds to open in Bray Town Hall". The Irish Times. 19 February 1997. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Bray Civic Offices, Main Street, Bray, County Wicklow". National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Development Plan 2005–2011" (PDF). Bray Town Council. Retrieved 27 October 2023.
- ^ "Local Government Reform Act 2014". Irish Statute Book. Retrieved 4 November 2023.
- ^ "What they said". The Irish Independent. 4 June 2014. Retrieved 27 October 2023.