Tetbury Market House

The current building was commissioned by the local feoffees to replace a medieval market house: the new building was designed in the neoclassical style, built with a timber frame and a stucco finish and was completed in 1655.[2] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto the Market Place; it was arcaded on the ground floor, so that wool and yarn markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor.[3] On the ground floor, there were three rows of seven Tuscan order columns which supported the first floor, which was fenestrated by two-light mullioned windows and surmounted by a central pediment with a clock in the tympanum.[1]

The building was extended by an extra bay to the south sometime in the 18th century. The south elevation featured a stone staircase leading up to a first-floor doorway with a keystone and a hood mould. The staircase was flanked by small doorways on the ground floor and by two-light mullioned windows on the first floor, and there was a central pediment with a clock in the tympanum on this side as well.[1] Internally, the principal room was the assembly room on the first floor which featured a central row of wooden Ionic order columns.[1]

In the 18th century, the assembly hall on the first floor was used by the feoffees as a town hall and as a courtroom for the manorial court hearings.[4] In 1817, alterations were carried out to a design by William Porter:[5] these included the infilling of the south bay to create accommodation for a horse-drawn fire engine and the removal of an extra floor on the east side of the building.[1]

The assembly room continued to be used as a courthouse, and part of the ground floor continued to be used as a lock-up for the incarceration of petty criminals, until a purpose-built courthouse and police station was erected in Long Street in 1884.[6] A cupola with an ogee-shaped copper roof and a weather vane depicting dolphins was erected on the roof to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.[1] The feoffees continued to administer the town from the assembly room until Tetbury Urban District Council was formed in 1894.[7][8] The assembly room was subsequently used as a classroom for the teaching of technical subjects[9] and ground floor continued to be used as the venue for markets on Wednesdays.[10]

The annual Tetbury Food and Drink Festival, held in September each year with a farmers style market in the market hall, was first held in September 2007.[11] The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall stood outside the market hall to turn on the Christmas lights in December 2012.[12]

• Grade I listed buildings in Cotswold (district)