Bolton King Charles III: The history of the town hall

Now Victoria Square, it opened as a market almost 200 years ago, after the one on Churchgate and Deansgate became too crowded.

The square was a centre of commerce and, after the Borough of Bolton formed from the townships of Great Bolton and Little Bolton in the 1830s, it was a frontrunner for a town hall.

However this town hall was still in need of an architect and, in the 1860s, a committee chaired by the then Mayor James Rawsthorne Wolfenden started a competition to choose them.

Bolton Town Hall

The competition was won by William Hill, based in Leeds, whose structure was inspired by the one at the centre of his hometown.

Assisted by George Woodhouse, based in Bolton, he set to work on a structure in the Neoclassical Style, although with a clock tower in the Baroque Style.

And 150 years ago, the town hall opened in the presence of the then Prince of Wales, later King Edward, the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

A number of additions were made to the town hall, such as statues of Dr Samuel Taylor Chadwick and Sir Benjamin Alfred Dobson. It was also at around this time, in the 1890s, Victoria Square received its name to mark the monarch's Diamond Jubilee.

Bolton Town Hall

However, the work was far from over. A lot of the structure as it is today is a result of the 1930s, when it was extended westwards and a crescent of other buildings was added by Bradshaw Gass and Hope, a business still to be seen in the town to this day.

In the 1960s, the area was pedestrianised and other additions followed from benches and bins to street lights and stone pavements.

And in the 1990s, the Town Hall Conservation Area was created when the Town Centre Conservation Area was split up into three.