The town hall was built and financed by a specially formed company known as the Kingsbridge Private Rooms Company.[2][3] It was designed in the neoclassical style, built in ashlar stone and was completed in 1850.[1] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage facing onto Fore Street; the building was arcaded on the ground floor, so that butter and poultry could be sold, with an assembly room on the first floor.[2] There were three round headed openings on the ground floor, a canted oriel window on the first floor and an obtuse angled pediment at roof level.[1] Internally, as well as the public rooms, the facilities included offices for the local constabulary and a lock-up for petty criminals.[2]
By the 1860s the town hall was being used as a drill hall by the 26th (Kingsbridge) Devonshire Rifle Volunteer Corps; it was also being used as a courthouse for petty session and county court hearings[2] and science classes were being held in the building.[4] A clock turret in the shape of a cube with three circular faces and a finial was placed on the roof of the building in 1875.[1] Local tradition has it that the clock was not given a western face so that the labourers in the Kingsbridge Union Workhouse would not be able to count the minutes until the end of their shift; a more likely explanation is simply that the western side of the clock was used for maintenance access.[5]
Following significant population growth, largely associated with the status of Kingsbridge as a market town, the area became an urban district in 1894.[6] The council acquired the building from the original shareholders allowing the company to be wound up in the early 20th century.[7] Soldiers from the 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion, the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), based at Saltash in Cornwall, were entertained to a concert in the town hall in December 1914 during the First World War.[8]
The town hall ceased to be the meeting place of the local council when it moved to Quay House in the 1950s.[9] The building was converted for use as a theatre in 1980[10] and then fitted out for use as a cinema in 1997:[11] it then operated as a community cinema under the Reel Cinema brand from May 2000, and after being acquired by Merlin Entertainments, was re-branded as the Kings Cinema in July 2015.[12]
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