Limehouse Town Hall
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Limehouse Town Hall in Limehouse, London has been through several changes over the years. Originally it was one of a number of Town Halls in Tower Hamlets with Poplar Town Hall, St George's Town Hall. In the past it has been the National Museum of Labour History. The Hall is 125 years old and is in the process of being renovated as a centre for arts and culture, in particular local history projects.
Built in 1878 by A. and C. Harston, the Limehouse Old Town Hall is a Grade II listed building. A venue which has seen the presence of dignitaries such as Clement Attlee as a local MP for 13 years and is the former site of the Museum of Labour History, now relocated to Macclesfield, the building features a white brick palazzo building with stone dressings, arched moulded windows, channelled angle piers, central pediment and strong projecting cornices.
The building is also adjacent to the Limehouse Cut Canal, built at the peak of the British Empire when the Docklands area was a gateway to Africa and Asia in particular, through which flowed resources ranging from spices and textiles to exotic foods and elephant tusks.
With a flow of material resources also came the cultural influences and people from these continents, such that the locality is now home also to communities of people of Chinese, Bangladeshi and Somali heritages. It is with these people, as well as with the sons and daughters of dockers, lightermen, factory workers and contemporary work people, that we particularly wish to explore a local lore surrounding the docklands area and the social history of its people. This includes campaigns such as the ground-breaking movements of the suffragettes, the matchstick girls' strike for health and financial rights and those of local figures such as George Lansbury and Clement Attlee who spearheaded civil rights movements.
- Address 646 Commercial Road, London, E14 7HA
It currently houses several groups, such as the Boxing Club, The Space Hijackers, Twenteenth Century, Primal Pictures, Stitches in Time, University of Openess and Creative Week.
[edit] External links
- Limehouse Town Hall "an independent centre for cultural production and the arts."
- Limehouse Town Hall - a new development
- Creative Week
- Stitches in Time
- University of Openess
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