Town Hall
The civic buildings of the borough included the Town Hall (originally the Vestry Hall) in Old Street with the Magistrates Court (derelict in 2007), the Coroner's Court in Boundary St and other civic offices nearby.
The original Vestry Hall of 1866 was described at the time as the 'grandest in London' and was designed by Caesar Augustus Long, a local architect about whom little is known. On the abolition of the London Vestries it became the town hall and was extended and enlarged in 1902 and 1938. The building is embellished with symbolic statuary alluding to the borough motto: "More Light, More Power". As the 1902 extensions were being completed the building caught fire and substantial rebuilding was needed. Surplus to requirements following the abolition of Shoreditch Borough in 1965 it fell into increasing disuse and was leased to a charitable Trust in 1998 who carried out a £3.5m restoration and now run it as a self-sustaining community business.
The borough motto commemorates the provision of electric power to the borough from the Vestry of St Leonard Shoreditch Electric Light Station later known as the Shoreditch Borough Refuse Destructor and Generating Station on Coronet Street. This building is embellished with the motto E PULVERE LUX ET VIS (Out of the dust, light and power). It was built in 1896 and burned rubbish, to provide steam for the electricity generator. The waste heat was used to heat the public baths next door ( and now demolished). The building is now home to The Circus Space
Read more about this topic: Metropolitan Borough Of Shoreditch
Famous quotes containing the words town and/or hall:
“Hey, you dress up our town very nicely. You don’t look out the Chamber of Commerce is going to list you in their publicity with the local attractions.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar)
“While there we heard the Indian fire his gun twice.... This sudden, loud, crashing noise in the still aisles of the forest, affected me like an insult to nature, or ill manners at any rate, as if you were to fire a gun in a hall or temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)