Conservation Area: Town Hall (Warrington) Conservation Area (062)

The central focus of the Town Hall conservation area is the former town hall, a fine Grade I listed Georgian town house designed by Gibb in 1750 and set in parkland behind fine wrought iron gates. The conservation area encompasses the Gibb’s building and its two annex buildings to the east and west; Bank Park itself; and a number of buildings adjacent to and in front of the hall along Sankey Street. The whole area has important townscape qualities, and the park itself is an unusual feature for an industrial town providing a fine setting for the hall with mature elm and plane trees along its length. The area contains a number of Grade II listed eighteenth and nineteenth century buildings. When viewed from Winmarleigh Street and Springfield Street the hall in its parkland setting and Bank House in its small scale urban setting, act as terminal features to these street axis. The plan forms in both these cases are symmetrical. The plan form for Sankey Street is asymmetrical. The main elements are a gentle curve in the street which is pinched at Bank House, the building being forward of the general street line, and being emphasised by the setting back of the adjacent Georgian building. The visual sequence moving east is the group of buildings and space which is asymmetrical in form, with Sankey Street and Bank House being important elements. Moving forward, Bank House acts as a pinch point and as an enclosing element, beyond this point the plan form opens to the hall in its parkland setting.