Newham Town Hall

Offices at Newham Dockside

In the early 20th century the East Ham Urban District Council held its meetings in the local school board offices in Wakefield Street.[2] Following a rapid growth in the local population,[3] civic leaders decided to procure purpose-built council offices: the site chosen for the new building was a plot of open land on the corner of Barking Road and High Street South.[4]

The foundation stone for the new building was laid in 1901.[5] It was designed by Henry Cheers and Joseph Smith in the Renaissance style, built by D.W. Barker and was officially opened by the philanthropist, John Passmore Edwards, on 5 February 1903.[6] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with six bays facing onto Barking Road; the right hand section featured a 150 foot (46 m) high tower and a large archway to the extreme right inscribed with the words "Public Hall" above.[1][7] A long extension to the south of the main building was completed in 1910 and a three-storey annex was built to the east on Barking Road in 1939.[3] Internally, the principal rooms were the public hall, the council chamber and the mayor's parlour.[1]

The building became "Newham Town Hall" after the area was designated the Municipal Borough of East Ham in 1904;[8] the area became the County Borough of East Ham in 1915.[9] The building continued to be the local seat of government after the formation of the London Borough of Newham in 1965.[10]

An additional building in Stratford, which was designed by the borough architect, Ken Lund, and Norman White in the shape of a ziggurat, was completed in May 1976; it was to have been joined by another, larger ziggurat, but after reductions in funding and criticism of the design the original ziggurat was demolished in February 1998.[11]

Most council officers and their departments were re-located to Newham Dockside (Building 1000 in Dockside Road) in 2010.[12] The building had been designed by Aukett Swanke and developed by Development Securities, Standard Life Investments and the London Development Agency as part of a scheme to regenerate the Royal Albert Dock; it had been built by Bowmer + Kirkland at a cost of £70 million and had been completed in June 2004.[13][14] After the developers had been unable to secure tenants, Newham Council acquired the building for £92 million and initiated a programme of fit-out works at a further cost of £19 million.[15] However, formal meetings of the council continue to take place in the town hall.[16]