The faces that peer down from history

We have visited these fascinating focal points of Durham's civic pride in our previous Past Times and admired their rich history.

Though impressive, they formed a relatively modest civic setting, even for a small city, like Durham, and in 1849, the then mayor, William Henderson, decided he wanted something bigger and better.

In the 19th century, towns across Britain were building enormous town halls as striking symbols of their emerging civic pride and Durham did not want to be left behind.

At the suggestion of Henderson, the citizens of Durham subscribed to the erection of a new building alongside the existing Guildhall.

Thankfully, Durham Town Hall, although impressive in its own way, was not built on the ostentatious scale of a typical Victorian town hall.

The result was something subtle: "for a Victorian civic building nicely humble", wrote the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, a little over 100 years later.

Standing in the Market Place, we can still admire the older, historic Guildhall and its familiar balcony, with the equally historic Mayor's Chamber hidden to its rear.

But the huge main hall, of 1850, is without doubt the most impressive and beautiful part of the entire building.

Mayor Henderson, owner of the city's carpet factory, set everything in motion. He employed the influential London architect Philip Charles Hardwick to build the hall in 1849 and it was officially opened in January 1851.

The architect based his designs on the medieval Westminster Hall and its most remarkable feature is the massive oak roof built in medieval hammer beam style.

Hardwick, who also built the city's Market Tavern, constructed the new town hall and indoor markets after removing a large 16th century house of "mouldering honeycomb stone".

This house, occasionally but erroneously described as a palace, was New Place. It was situated between the Guildhall and St Nicholas' Church and stretched towards the river.

It was the town house of the powerful Neville family and was occasionally called Bull's Head from a Neville family crest on the outer wall.

The house was confiscated from the family following their involvement in the great northern rebellion of 1569. Parts were later used as a workhouse, carpet factory and the Blue Coat School, before its move to Claypath.

From the exterior, Hardwick's town hall, along with the associated tavern, and the markets, are fine stone buildings that fit in with the general scale and style of Durham Market Place.

This makes the scale and grandeur of the main hall's interior all the more surprising.

Inside, it is huge and impressive and the only possible criticism is that in scale and beauty it rather overshadows the more historic Guildhall.

To reach the main hall, we pass through the entrance foyer and along a corridor.

Here are displayed Boer War rifles, a portrait and a life-size statue of the 3ft 3in Polish Count, Joseph Boruwlaski (1739-1837).

A glass case also displays the clothes and violin of Boruwlaski, who was a Durham resident for half of his half-sized life. We have featured Boruwlaski in a previous Past Times, but his artifacts are just some of the many features in Durham Town Hall that leave us in no doubt that the building deserves to feature more prominently in the city's tourist trail.

At the end of the corridor, we get our first glimpse of the 72ft main hall, with its impressive panelling and stained glass windows.

On entering the hall, we can see, just to our left, a huge portrait of a young man examining some plans. This is William Henderson and the plans are those for Hardwick's town hall.

However, the first thing we should admire in the hall is the solid wooden roof about 56ft above the ground. For 1850, it seems remarkably medieval.

It is quite dark up there so we should give our eyes time to adjust to the sight of the 12 magnificent carved angels that hover at the end of the hammerbeams.

The hall's walls are adorned with extensive wooden panelling upon which are mounted seemingly hundreds of wooden plaques.

They give the names and years for individual mayors dating back to 1835 and are brought right up to date with the inclusion of the present incumbent.

Other panels commemorate honorary freemen of the city and there are several coats of arms representing notable families, including dukes and earls from throughout County Durham.

As well as Henderson's portrait, paintings in the hall include one of Sir Robert Peel, who had two spells as Prime Minister - in 1834-35 and 1841-46.

There is also a portrait of the actor Stephen Kemble (1758-1822) playing Hamlet.

Kemble resided in Durham and was manager of a Georgian theatre in Saddler Street.

In his later days, this 6ft performer rather filled out and could play Falstaff without padding. By then, he weighed about 30 stone, though he must have seemed much bigger in the presence of little Boruwlaski, who was one of his closest friends.

The painting here clearly depicts Kemble in his younger, slimmer days.

Close to Kemble's painting is a portrait of Robbie Burns, the Scottish poet, who has no obvious connection with Durham.

Durham's Caledonian Society donated the work in 1859 to commemorate Burns' centenary.

A window in the hall dating from 1951 commemorates the Durham Light Infantry, but it is the Great West Window of 1853 that is possibly the most striking feature of the hall.

Its centrepiece depicts the city's guilds on their Corpus Christi procession, while another depicts King Edward III in Durham Market Place.

He appears on horseback, throwing coins to the city's populace as thanks for the recovery of a baggage train lost during his campaign against the Scots.

A coin-throwing ceremony performed by new mayors of Durham from the guildhall balcony may be in emulation of this.

Around the four corners of the window are depicted the four bishops who gave the city its charters, but we will save the story of the bishops and their charters for another week.