Tavistock Guildhall

On Saturday 4 December, Tavistock’s newly restored and converted Guildhall reopened its doors as a new heritage visitor attraction.

The new heritage centre tells the story of Tavistock as the eastern gateway to the Cornwall & West Devon Mining Landscape UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors will discover how mining transformed Tavistock in the 19th century, and learn about the multi-faceted industrial landscape of the region, as well as what it means to be a World Heritage Site town. Visitors will be able to hear the stories of the men and women who worked and lived in the region. They will understand the far-reaching influence of the Earls and Dukes of Bedford on the town and surrounding area, and discover the 7th Duke’s role in bringing law and order to Tavistock by commissioning one of the country’s earliest purpose-built combined courtrooms and police stations in 1848, a building which also housed the town’s fire engine house.

The guildhall became a pioneer in the development of the modern police and justice system and the perfectly preserved Victorian cells and imposing tiered courtroom will showcase moments from the history of the town and its iconic building. As well as being a heritage centre, the rejuvenated Grade II* listed building will also provide a venue for a variety of cultural and community events throughout the year ranging from talks, courses, exhibitions, concerts and performances, as well as being home to the town’s enlarged Visitor Information Centre. The new Guildhall Heritage Centre is being run by Tavistock Heritage Trust in partnership with Tavistock Town Council.

So, what is the story behind the imposing neo-Gothic edifice that has formed the centre point of the town for the past 173 years? Back in the early decades of the 19th century, both the newly appointed chief of police in Tavistock and the local magistrates shared a rather draughty and decaying 300-year-old guild building situated where the town hall stands today. In 1845 the exasperated clerk to the justices, Robert Luxton, told a parliamentary enquiry that the old guildhall was ‘in a very dilapidated state’ and that ‘the magistrates can scarcely deliberate upon a case without being heard by some of the spectators’. The custodian of the town, Francis Russell, 7th Duke of Bedford, stepped in and set aside £4,000 to fund a new guildhall which would combine a police station and courtroom. He decided to locate it a few yards away from the old guildhall where his father the 6th Duke, John Russell, had already instigated some improvements.

John had a penchant for Gothic architecture and was especially attached to the ruins of Tavistock Abbey. In the 1820s he employed the Plymouth architect John Foulston to restore the area of the town which had once formed part of the Great Court and Court Gate of the old abbey. The etching by J Coney dated 1820 gives a representation of the area when Foulston started his project. However, Foulston only completed part of the work, renovating Court Gate, building the new Subscription Library and cottage and also renovating the building known as Trowte’s House, which once served as a guesthouse for the abbey and, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries, became home to a local clothier called John Trowte. An 1838 drawing of Foulston’s plan shows the total restoration of the abbey buildings but it seems that he only managed to finish part of the work and then covered the remaining run-down buildings, consisting of an old mill, stables and hayloft, with a neo-Gothic façade constructed using local Hurdwick stone. In 1843 Theophilus Jones, architect/surveyor to the Bedford Estate, was instructed by the 7th Duke of Bedford to start work on Tavistock Guildhall by adapting Foulston’s initial designs. Work finally finished on the new guildhall in September 1848.

An article in the North Devon Journal in October 1848 gives a detailed description of the building: ‘The new Guildhall here, which has been built by his Grace the Duke of Bedford at a cost of £4000, was opened last week for the use of the inhabitants. It was built in the Gothic style near the public library and is said to be one of the finest Guildhalls in the county… His Grace’s resident architect, Mr Jones, prepared a design for extending the building in character with the old portion of the Abbey, which is of the castellated early English type… It is quite an ornament in the town. On the entrance from the Plymouth new road, the whole is seen to perfection. The only drawback is the old walls of the cattle market, which the Duke has been pleased to say shall be removed as soon as a suitable place can be selected for a new one, and the necessary arrangements made for the removal. The hall is 53 foot long and 23 broad and contains comfortable sittings for about 200 persons and might accommodate, including standing room, about 500. The room is admirably laid out with separate seats, having convenient entrances on each side for the magistrates, the clerks, attorneys, jury, and witnesses; and the prisoner’s dock is connected with the flight of stairs leading to the lock-up cells beneath. At the end of the hall is a niche immediately over the bench, the Royal Arms, the Prince of Wales’s arms and those of the Bedford family, which were in the old Guildhall, having been restored in a very superior manner, have been placed; and beneath is a carved and gilded figure of justice – a very appropriate ornament for the court. The police station underneath the hall consists of a residence for the inspector, and six cells of various dimensions, two of them having beds. The cells as well as the hall are admirably fitted up with a superior hot water heating apparatus; and due care has been taken that the whole be properly ventilated on the most approved principle the ventilation can be regulated by valves at pleasure. The hall as well as the police station is lighted with gas, and the pillars, which are cast for the occasion, are in character with and resemble the granite pillars of the building.’

Following the flooding of the original cells in 1890, two new ‘modern’ cells were also completed and for the next century Tavistock Guildhall continued as the centre of policing and justice in the town. The building transferred to the ownership of Devon County Police in the early 20th century, and was sold to Devon County Council in 1912/13. It started to fall into disuse in the 1990s, with the courtroom closing in 1997 and the police station relocating in 2012. Tavistock Town Council bought the Grade II* building in 2014 to rescue it from further decline and bring it back into public use. Thanks to generous funding from the National Heritage Lottery Fund, West Devon Borough Council, Devon County Council and other organisations, it will finally re-open its doors and begin an exciting new era.

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