Faversham Guildhall - Faversham

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Faversham Guildhall - Faversham

Faversham's Guildhall dominates the Market Place and forms Faversham’s focal point in the centre of the town. This is Faversham’s third Guildhall. The first was on Guildhall Green in Tanners Street, more or less where the present Gospel Mission Hall stands. The town’s early nucleus was in this area but later the centre of gravity moved to Court Street.

In about 1547 the Corporation built a new Guildhall where the single-storey section of the Shelter Shop now stands, on the east side, at the north end of Middle Row. Sometimes known as the ‘White House’ (presumably because it was lime-washed white), this was where Queen Elizabeth I was entertained on her visit to the town in 1572.

Evidently the new building was not a success because in 1603 the Council moved to the present, third, Guildhall. This had been built in 1574 as a Market Hall, by community effort, by the people of the town and 13 nearby parishes. Its open ground-floor arcade provided cover, as it still does, for market traders and their customers. This was a popular building formula, though more common in the Midlands than the south east. The detailed building accounts, and list of contributors, survive in the town’s first surviving Wardmote (Council Minute) Book.

What sets the Faversham Guildhall apart from most of its counterparts is that it has a tower at one corner: in this respect it is more akin to Scottish tollbooths. Though the building is not large, the hall and tower still ‘float’ gracefully over the town centre, dominating the Market Place and forming Faversham’s focal point.

In 1814 to celebrate one of Wellington’s victories in the Napoleonic Wars local yobs set fire to the Guildhall, and the upper floor and tower had to be rebuilt. The opportunity was taken to extend it by two bays to the north. The general outline remained as before but the designer, Charles Drayson (1749/50-1830), worked in the prevailing Regency Idiom. Thanks to his skill, there is no stylistic clash with the 16th-century arcade underneath. The building remained timber-framed, softwood from the Baltic, imported via the Creek, superseding the hardwood of its predecessor.

It owes its elegance to simplicity, good proportions and a little subterfuge: some of the windows on the long flank wail are ‘blind’ and there just to relieve what would otherwise be the monotony of a long wall with few openings. A cornice neatly binds the hall to the tower and a continuous parapet hides the low-pitched slate roof. There is a fine Venetian window at the north end.

The tower is a little masterpiece of design, with its built-in clock, jaunty balustraded parapet and handsome octagonal cupola, topped by a wind vane in the form of a golden dragon, with forked tail. The clock is dated 1814 and bears the name of Francis Crow (1755/6-1835), a maker who lived and worked opposite, at 8 Market Place.

The inside of the hall is arranged as two rooms - a large council-chamber and a smaller committee-room.

(All the text reproduced with the kind permission of The Faversham Society and thank you Peter Faulkner of www.faversham.org for permission to reproduce the article.)

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