Market Hall, Old Town Hall
Built in the 17C, it was a hive
of activity on market days when farmers’ wives would sell their surplus
eggs, butter and cheeses under the shelter of the meeting room above.
The
stone pillars support a framework of massive oak beams carrying a timber framed
structure covered in lathes and plaster stucco facing.
At one time there
must have been a room under the roof, as well as the main meeting room. Old
pictures show a dormer window looking towards the saddlers.
The iron hoop
on the pillar is supposed to be where wrong doers were tied to be whipped,
commonly called ‘the whipping post’, adjacent to this were the
stocks.
The first town jail was a tiny room in one corner with a very
small, high window as a peep hole in the door. It has been written that if your
friend was incarcerated inside and you wished to give him some ale, you placed
the stem of your clay pipe through the peep hole, placed the pipe bowl in the
ale and inmate then could suck the ale through the pipe!
Later a larger
brick lockup was built adjoining the Hall to the west, this in turn went out of
use in the 1880s when a proper Police Station was built on the eastern edge of
the town which had 2 single cells. The lock-up was then taken over as a store
for the barrow, brush and shovel of the town road sweeper, the building was
eventually removed in the 1900s.
The town’s first fire fighting
appliance, the parish pump as it was called was housed under the Market Hall,
and the bell to summon the crew was erected over the ridge of the roof.
The town ambulance was also garaged here for a time, after the Cottage
Hospital was opened in the 1890s.
The ambulance was the church bier, not
very encouraging to be taken to hospital on the same set of wheels that was
used to take bodies from the hospital morgue to the church and the
graveside!
When Lord Berners purchased Faringdon House and estate, he
became Lord of the Manor. The Market Hall at that time, with most of the Market
Place, went with manorial rights.
However Lord Berners declined to buy the
Hall as it needed a lot of repairs, so the seller gave the building to the town
as a home for the war memorial to the fallen of the First World war.
During the Second World war, officers were billeted in the meeting room. They
only had a small tortoise stove for heating and it was said that more heat came
off the chimney than the stove.
A George III framed coat of arms was
fixed between the two eastern windows until the Hall was given to the town. No
one knows where it disappeared to!
The Hall once housed the Faringdon
library, and after a period of unuse has been restored to become a meeting room
again.