Hampstead Town Hall


Hampstead Town hall is a municipal building on Haverstock Hill, Hampstead, London. It is a Grade II listed building.

History

The facility was commissioned as the offices of the Hampstead Vestry. It was designed by Henry Edward Kendall and Frederick Mew in the Italianate style and was built by William Shepherd of Bermondsey; the building was opened without ceremony in June 1878. Meetings of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society were held at the town hall from 1897. It became the headquarters of the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead when it was formed in 1900. A substantial extension was built to a design by John Murray in the Baroque style, extending south west along Belsize Avenue in 1911.
During the Second World War, air raid shelters were built in the grounds. It ceased to function as the local of seat of government when the enlarged London Borough of Camden was formed in 1965. Instead it served as the local Registry Office but large sections of the building had fallen into a state of disrepair by the 1990s. It was subsequently converted, to the designs of Burrell Foley Fischer with a large glass atrium, for use as an arts centre in 2000.