Old Town Hall, Kensington


The old Town Hall was a municipal facility at Kensington High Street in Kensington, West London. It was demolished in 1982.

History

The building was commissioned to replace a mid-19th-century vestry hall in Kensington High Street, which had been designed by Benjamin Broadbridge in the Tudor style and which had become inadequate for the council's needs.
The new building, which was designed by Robert Walker in the Italianate style, was built by Braid and Co. on an adjacent site just to the east of the old building and was completed in 1880. It went on to become the headquarters of the Royal Borough of Kensington when the area secured Royal borough status in 1901. It was extended to a design by William Weaver, the surveyor to the vestry, and William Hunt in 1899.
Following the creation of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in 1965, the council chose to build modern facilities at the new Kensington Town Hall in Hornton Street.
The old town hall was demolished "in controversial circumstances" involving an impending conservation order in June 1982.