Rhyl Town Hall

button-theme-slavesRhyl Town Hall

Photo of Town Hall in 1906The Town Hall was formally opened, with a flourish of trumpets, on Wednesday 11 October 1876. HR Hughes, Lord-Lieutenant of Flintshire, presided. Tradesmen closed their businesses and the streets were decorated with arches and flags. Spectators watched a procession which included the fire engine and brigade, the police, the lifeboat (drawn by six horses) and its crew, coastguards, magistrates and four musical bands. It paraded along nearly every street in the town, in spite of squally showers. In the evening, a grand banquet was held in the Town Hall for about 250 guests.

The hall was designed by John Turner of Barrow-in-Furness, and the builder was J Rhydwen Jones of Rhyl. The exterior walls are faced with Penmaenmawr stone and dressed with stone from Cefn, near Wrexham.

The principal entrance was in Water Street, although the building had a frontage on three streets.  Inside were offices for the town clerk and surveyor, a fire station, store rooms, a soup kitchen and a dining room. A portion was leased for a bank, corn exchange and auctioneer’s office. The fish, vegetable and butcher’s markets were also here. 

The hall’s estimated cost was £4,750, but in the event the total was about £6,000. The photo shows the building in 1906.

Portrait of Hallie Quinn BrownIn 1898 the Town Hall was the venue for lectures by Afro-American orator Hallie Quinn Brown (1845-1949), pictured here courtesy of the Library of Congress. Her parents were born as slaves following liaisons between plantation owners (one of them a Scottish woman) and their slaves. Both parents were freed and helped fugitive slaves reach freedom before the USA abolished slavery in 1865. Hallie was brought up in the USA and Canada, gained a science degree and taught at plantations, evening classes and universities. She campaigned for women’s suffrage, temperance and black people’s rights.

Her three lectures in Rhyl Town Hall in January 1898 were focused on temperance (one titled The nation’s tyrant: Alcohol) and included renditions of “negro melodies”. By popular demand, she returned to Rhyl in December 1898, for talks on American slavery and temperance and for a recital at the Town Hall.

The building was extended, in a matching style, in 1907 to accommodate the Carnegie Library. The philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who was born in Scotland and made his fortune from industrial ventures in the USA, provided £3,000 towards the library’s establishment. The town’s library remained here until 1982.

steam engine from Rhyl Miniature Railway was displayed at the town hall in the late 1970s, after the town council bought it at a London auction house.

The Town Hall is now owned by Denbighshire County Council and provides facilities for meetings and community events.

With thanks to Ruth Pritchard, of Rhyl History Club

Postcode: LL18 1BA    View Location Map