Stockton-on-Tees Town Hall

The first structure on the site, traditionally referred to a town house, was completed in around 1100 and rebuilt in the late 15th century.[2] A purpose-built tolbooth was erected just south of the original building in the late 17th century: it was arcaded on the ground floor to allow markets to be held and there was a lock up in the building to accommodate prisoners, as well as a meeting room on the first floor and adjoining accommodation to allow visitors to stay.[2] The building was owned by the Bishops of Durham who collected rents from use of the market stalls and the rooms above.[2]

The current structure, which was designed in the Georgian style, was completed in 1735.[1] The old tolbooth was demolished in 1744 to allow the new building to be extended.[3][4] The design for the new building involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing the market square; the left hand bay featured a round headed doorway flanked by engaged Doric order columns with the borough coat of arms placed above the doorway.[1] The side elevations displayed Venetian windows and the north elevation featured a doorway in the central bay and five round headed casement windows on the first floor.[1] At roof level there was a short clock tower with a belfry surrounded by Ionic order columns supporting a small balcony.[1] A piazza was created to the north of the building and a market cross designed by John Shout was erected there in 1768.[3][5][6]

At a meeting in the town hall in 1810, the recorder of Stockton, Leonard Raisbeck, used the opportunity to advocate the need for a railway to connect the borough with the more central parts of the country.[2] The lock-up became redundant after a police station, complete with cells, was completed in West Row in 1851.[3] The building was refurbished in the 1880s and the piazza was covered over with an iron canopy in 1890.[3]

Stockton-on-Tees Municipal Borough Council acquired the building from the Bishops of Durham in 1939 in order to secure continued access to their meeting place[2] and then hosted a visit by Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, on 4 June 1956.[7][8][9] Municipal buildings, which were commissioned to provide additional office space for council officers and their departments, were built nearby, in Church Road, and completed in 1961.[10] The town hall ceased to be local seat of government when the short-lived County Borough of Teesside was formed in 1967:[11] however, its main role as a civic meeting place was restored when Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council was formed in 1974.[12] An extensive programme of refurbishment works was completed in 2011.[13]