Southall Town Hall

In 1878, the vestry, which had not previously been active, was instructed to find a permanent home for its meetings.^[2] After the area became an urban district as Southall-Norwood Urban District Council in 1894, this need for a permanent home became more pressing and the vestry board decided to procure purpose-built council offices in the High Street: the site they selected was open land owned by the Earl of Jersey.^[3][4]

The foundation stone for the new building was laid by the Countess of Jersey on 8 November 1897.^[4] It was designed by Thomas Newall in the classical style, built by C.F. Kearley of Uxbridge and was completed in 1898.^[5] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the High Street; the central section featured a tetrastyle porch with Doric order columns on the ground floor and there was a window with a balcony flanked by Doric order pilasters on the first floor with a pediment containing a clock above.^[4] The principal room was the council chamber on the first floor.^[4]

The building became the headquarters of the Municipal Borough of Southall in 1936^[6] but ceased to function as the local seat of government when the enlarged London Borough of Ealing was formed in 1965.^[7] It subsequently operated as a training and enterprise centre.^[8] In April 1979, Blair Peach, a New Zealand teacher and anti-racism campaigner, died after being hit on the head, probably by a member of the Special Patrol Group (SPG), a specialist unit within the Metropolitan Police Service, during a riot outside the town hall.^[9][10]

In 2017, the council decided to dispose of a long leasehold interest in the town hall to the Vishwa Hindu Kendra temple, which is based just north of the hall.^[11] However, after the High Court decided in July 2018 that the council had acted unlawfully and unreasonably in trying to sell the building,^[12] the council decided in September 2018 not to appeal.^[13]