Abram Council Offices

After significant industrial growth in the mid-19th century, largely associated with the coal mining industry, a local board of health was formed in 1880.{{Cite web|url=http://www.gmcro.co.uk/Guides/Gazeteer/gazza.htm |title=Greater Manchester Gazetteer |publisher=Greater Manchester County Record Office |access-date=29 March 2023 |at=Places names - A |archive-date=18 July 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718144214/http://www.gmcro.co.uk/Guides/Gazeteer/gazza.htm |url-status = dead}}{{Cite book |last1=Brownbill|first1=John|first2=William|last2=Farrer|title=A History of the County of Lancaster: Volume 5|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=41389|publisher=Victoria County History|year=1911|isbn=978-0-7129-1055-2|pages=111–115 }} The local board initially established its offices at Abram Brow, just off Warrington Road.{{cite web|url= https://www.wiganworld.co.uk/album/photo.php?opt=5&id=7409&gallery=Abram&page=694 |title= A bit of old Abram|publisher=Wigan World| access-date=28 March 2023}} Abram became an urban district in 1894{{cite web|url= https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10136957 |title= Abram UD|publisher=Vision of Britain| access-date=28 March 2023}} and, in this context, civic leaders decided to erect new offices on the east side of Warrington Road.{{cite web|url= https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.7&lat=53.5092&lon=-2.5925&layers=168&b=1&marker=53.5092,-2.5925 |title=Ordnance Survey Map|year=1914| access-date=28 March 2023}} The site faced a graveyard which included a memorial to the 75 men and boys who had died in a pit explosion at Maypole Colliery in August 1908.{{cite web|url=http://www.old-merseytimes.co.uk/Mining.html|title=Maypole Pit Disaster|date=22 August 1908|publisher=Liverpool Mercury| access-date=28 March 2023}}{{cite web|url=https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Docs/PDF/Resident/Leisure/Museums-and-archives/archives/Past-Forward/pf49.pdf|title=Past Forward- 100th Anniversary of the Maypole disaster|date=August 2008|publisher=Wigan Heritage Service| access-date=28 March 2023}}{{cite news|url= http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/abram-remembers-pit-disaster-victims-1-190072 |title= Abram remembers pit disaster victims|newspaper=Wigan Today|date= 20 August 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160214042705/http://www.wigantoday.net/news/local/abram-remembers-pit-disaster-victims-1-190072|archive-date=14 February 2016 |url-status=dead}}

The building was designed by Heaton, Ralph and Heaton in the Edwardian Baroque style, built in red brick and was completed in 1903.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dl_ghLUNVGsC&pg=PA73 |title=Lancashire: Liverpool and the southwest|first1= Richard |last1=Pollard|first2=Nikolaus |last2=Pevsner|first3=Joseph |last3=Sharples|year=2006|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0300109108|page=73}} The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of five bays facing onto Warrington Road. The central bay featured a doorway with an architrave and a keystone inscribed with the date of completion. The doorway was flanked by ornately carved columns supporting a cornice, above which there was a stone panel inscribed with the words "ADC Offices". There was an oriel window on the first floor and a small casement window in the moulded gable above. The left-hand outer bay contained a doorway on the ground floor and was fenestrated by an oriel window on the first floor and by a small casement window in the moulded gable above. The right-hand outer bay contained a doorway and a mullioned and transomed window on the ground floor, a pair of windows on the first floor and a small casement window in the moulded gable above. There was a prominent modillioned cornice above the first floor windows. Internally, the principal room was the council chamber, which hosted monthly meetings of the urban district council.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3uNGMIAG7Y4C |page=1003|title= The Municipal Year Book and Public Utilities Directory |year= 1957|publisher=Municipal Journal }}

The building continued to serve as the offices of Abram Urban District Council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council was formed in 1974.{{cite book|title=Local Government Act 1972. 1972 c.70|publisher=The Stationery Office Ltd|isbn=0-10-547072-4|year=1997}} The building was subsequently sold to a developer, renamed "Maypole Hall" in recognition of the nearby pit where the explosion had taken place, and converted into apartments.{{cite web|url=https://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Greater_Manchester/Abram/pictures/1050277 |title= The old District Council Offices, Abram, Greater Manchester|publisher=Pictures of England| access-date=28 March 2023}}

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{{Buildings and structures in Wigan Borough}}

Category:Government buildings completed in 1903

Category:Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan

Category:City and town halls in Greater Manchester