The Château of Stains after the destruction of 1870
The town hall was commissioned as the stable block of the Château of Stains. The estate was acquired by the diplomat Achille de Harlay in 1598.[2] However, it subsequently remained undeveloped until the local seigneur, Toussaint Bellanger, decided to commission a château on the site. The château was designed by Armand Claude Mollet in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in 1714.[3] The stables were added on the east side of the estate in 1750.[4]
The château was acquired by Pierre-Laurent Hainguerlot, for the use of Jérôme Bonaparte, in late 1813.[5] It passed by inheritance to Hainguerlot's son-in-law, Alphée Bourdon de Vatry, in 1840.[6] It was then destroyed by Prussian artillery, leaving only the stable block undamaged, during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.[7]
Following the French Revolution, the town council initially met at the home of the mayor at the time. This arrangement continued until 1831, when the council relocated to a building at the corner of Rue Carnot and Rue Marcel Cachin. After finding these premises cramped, the council decided to acquire the abandoned stables of the Château of Stains from the Bourdon de Vatry family in 1883. A major programme of works to convert the building for municipal use was subsequently carried out to a design by Sieur Villebesseys.[8]
The building was laid out in a horseshoe shape around a courtyard. The main block, at the back of the courtyard, featured five large round headed openings. The central bay, which was slightly projected forward, was flanked by full-height banded pilasters supporting a pediment with a coat of arms in the tympanum and, behind the pediment, there was a châteauesque-style roof. Internally, the principal rooms, which were in the main block, were the Salle du Conseil (council chamber) and the Salle des Mariages (wedding room)[9]
