Rochdale Town Hall reopens to visitors after multi-million pound restoration

Date published: 05 March 2024

Rochdale Town Hall reopened with a fanfare on Sunday 3 March 2024 after being closed for more than three years for restoration work.

The Grade I listed building has undergone a major restoration, which was supported by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Teams of specialists, and more than 500 volunteers, have spent four years transforming the space and restoring it to its former glory. Spaces which had previously been hidden from view are also now accessible to the public for the first time.

A number of the historic features the building is so well known for, including the decorative ceiling panels and angels in the Great Hall, the Magna Carta mural, the extensive stained glass, painted surfaces and stonework have been painstakingly restored and cleaned.

The ribbon was cut by Mayor of Rochdale, Mike Holly at 10am to a fanfare from Rochdale Music Service.

Visitors were able to see the new Welcome Gallery which tells the story of Rochdale Town Hall from its original inception to its present day incarnation. They then went through the Mayor's Parlour and the Mayor's Reception Room to the Small Exchange before heading up the main staircase to the Great Hall.

From the Great Hall visitors headed past the Zodiac Room up the stairs or into one of the new lifts to the floor above and the Bright Hall where a previously hidden window allowed a different perspective of the Great Hall.

 

 

Volunteer guides were on hand inside and outside the venue in their distinctive blue jackets to answer any questions visitors had.

We went along to find out what visitors thought of the revamped building.

Kevin from Rochdale said: "It's absolutely fabulous, it’s eye-opening, it's everything, and everybody in Rochdale should make an attempt to visit.

"It [the open day] has been well organised, everything is perfect, even the weather's nice. It’s a couple of hours that’s well spent and it should be enjoyed by everybody."

 

 

Gertrud and Julie, both from Littleborough, were enjoying a piece of cake in the Zodiac Room when we caught up with them for their thoughts. Julie said: "It's exquisite, it’s absolutely exquisite. It definitely is an asset for Rochdale, and a testament to everybody who's been involved."

She added: "We had a talk at our history club about the conservation work – what really impressed me about that, apart from the workmanship which is just gobsmacking, was the fact that how they involved local people, kids from the college and taught them to actually do it.

"I think there's a young woman who they told us who became really skilled at the restoration of the glass and she now has a permanent job and the other thing was they told us that they are building a room – they are having a room here for ongoing restorations and I think that succession plan is amazing."

Gertrud added: "What I find interesting is that it opens up the whole centre here so that you get a view to the church and it would be nice to see how that will be finished. I find it interesting too that having been in it before and seeing it now it is really quite an eye opener."

Julie finished: "My favourite is the wallpaper and the colours, they look phenomenal. We're seeing things today that we didn’t notice before."

We sat down for a few minutes in the Great Hall with Doreen from Rochdale and asked her for her thoughts. She said: "It's very clean from what I remember it to be. I do know a few rooms, I've been here years and years ago. I've been in a couple of the rooms downstairs. I used to do the polling so we used to pick our polling things up here.

"I think they have done a good job. I think more organised tours with a guide will be good because you can't take it all in really. I'm glad I came today."

 

 

One of the volunteers, David from Littleborough was on duty in the Great Hall. We asked him about his experience so far. He said: "I’m a brand new volunteer and I've been studying this for 12 months. So we started 12 months ago looking at the exterior of the building because we couldn’t get inside because work was going on. We had a series of workshops on a lot of things connected with guiding people round. Then we started coming in the building two months ago and it's one of those things that every time you come in, you see different things."

We asked David what prompted him to become a volunteer. He said: "I retired from a very high pressure job about four years ago and I was hitting what I call an interest vacuum, it was either jigsaws or crosswords and that’s not me.

"I volunteer as a guide up at the Fireground Museum a couple of days a week and this was an extension of that. I’ve been in the town hall once when it wasn’t at its best because of the darkness of the ceiling and when I saw it was happening I thought, yes I want to be part of that. It's one of those things, the more you find out about it, the more you want to find out about it.

"I think when you look at Rochdale now, you don’t realise just how big it was in its pomp, this wasn’t just a famous town locally or regionally or nationally, it was internationally and globally renowned as a centre of textiles. We used to trade with lots and lots of places, shipping out through different ports, different manufacturers, different products, different services. It was absolutely immense.

"If you look at this room, this is reckoned to be, by the people who really know what they are talking about, on a par with the Palace of Westminster.

"The Palace of Westminster is a global, iconic building so to have the equivalent of that in this little mill town in Lancashire is absolutely staggering. It’s a building that the people of Rochdale have been justifiably proud of for over 150 years with many more to come.

"One thing that is quite amusing about the angels in this room is that there was some work done on this in the earliest part of the 1900’s and the workmen must have had a sense of humour because when our restorers were up there, some of these angels had glasses painted on them, some had got moustaches and some had beards. They have been cleaned up now but they are not just decorative, they are structural because it’s a hammer beam roof and those angels in the corbels are quite important in keeping them supported.

"Today, you could say you are in a time machine because where we are standing now, the last time anybody saw this in this state, members of the public, was on September 1871, the day it opened. Welcome to the past."

 

 

Alan Calow, a Castleton resident and toastmaster has been in the building many times before and we had a quick chat with him inbetween the waves of visitors he was greeting in the Exchange.

We asked him how many functions he has done at the town hall. He said: "Hundreds, yes loads, I've done weddings, I've done dinners, I’ve done mayor making, I’ve got the Mayor's Ball coming up, I've done freedom of the borough, I’ve done civic receptions. I’ve done everything here."

When we asked for his thoughts on seeing the rooms that are finished, he said: "It's just superb, it's a building masterpiece. It's the jewel in Rochdale’s crown. It’s stunning.

"When you come to a function here you just look at ground level, you never think about looking up at the architecture. We've done the Mayor's Ball here many times, and mayors from other towns attend who have not been in before - when I take them up the stairs, they are just taken back when they see the building. They stop before they even walk in.

"A lot of people today haven’t been here before, and they are just taken aback as soon as they come in.

"What I like when we do weddings here, we put all the chairs out here in the Exchange for the guests, the bride walks down that magnificent staircase and there is nothing more romantic."

Finally we asked David who had travelled from Altrincham what he thought after completing the tour. He said: "It's brilliant, my wife is from Rochdale, we got married in Rochdale. We lived in Wardle for years, but we live in Altrincham now and for ages she's wanted to see the town hall and we’ve never managed to book for it. We managed to book for the opening, it's brilliant, dead impressive and especially when you see the Great Hall as well, it's absolutely incredible.

"Particularly the downstairs [Welcome Gallery] where the video on the big screen tells the history of the building, that is really worth anybody looking at because it really goes through it from when it was first envisaged all the way to completion. You see all the different people who have visited, all the kings and queens and Shirley Bassey and Gracie Fields. I'm really impressed with it and we will recommend it to friends for the next tours."

Future tour dates and times are not yet confirmed but the building is open 7 days a week (except Bank Holidays) from 10am to 4pm - if you want to take a look around the town hall then there’s no need to pre-book ahead of your visit, just drop in. Certain rooms may not be accessible at all times because of weddings and other events, so people who wish to see particular rooms are advised to contact the town hall team in advance.