If you came to our quiz night last week, you would be forgiven for thinking that the whole building had been fully put right after the Opening Up works documented in earlier blog posts.
It's true that the hole in the Shambles' floor has been re-filled and the ceiling tiles put back above; we are extremely grateful to our team of volunteers who cleaned and scrubbed to make the room ready for the quiz.
However elsewhere, in other rooms, the building does remain exposed, particularly the ceilings.
Turning Back Time
During his task of altering the time on the clock at the seasonal hour change, our Lead Trustee Charles took the following pictures which may tell a little more of the building's story.
This shows the damaged vaulted ceiling above the first floor waiting area. We don't have definitive evidence but this water damage may have occurred during the fire of 1933 when the clocktower burned and was dowsed by the resident fire brigade.
In the same sort of area above the waiting room there is a very old oak beam which potentially may have come from the previous Town Hall (which stood almost opposite our building), materials from which were used in constructing the current building.
The Opening Up works have left us with large areas of exposed ceiling. It would be too expensive and counterintuitive for the project to put them back at this point, so we will continue for now with a more restricted use of the building, avoiding use of the affected rooms.
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