Team Surveys Scheme of Windows at Rochdale Town Hall

March 2020

Since March, members of the YGT have been acting as specialist advisors for Rochdale Town Hall, as part of their plans to conserve their extensive scheme of over 100 nineteenth-century stained glass windows by Heaton, Butler and Bayne of London. This is part of an a £16m project to entirely restore the Town Hall, under the direction of leading chartered conservation architects Donald Insall Associates. Construction was first started on Rochdale Town Hall in 1866 by celebrated high Victorian architect William Henry Crossland (1835-1908), and the building is Grade I listed. It is widely regarded as a Gothic Revival masterpiece.

The redevelopment and restoration project is in the preliminary stages of a National Heritage Lottery Fund bid to restore the building and its numerous historic features, and will be part of a project that will seek to engage local and national audiences. The ambitious project is being overseen by the Rochdale Development Agency on behalf of Rochdale Borough Council. Other members of the project team include the Frank Whittle Partnership (cost managers), Price and Myers (structural engineers), Redman Design (interpretation), and Gillespie's (landscape architects).