Castleford Civic Centre is a municipal building in Ferrybridge Road in Castleford, a town in West Yorkshire in England. The building, which was previously the offices and meeting place of the Municipal Borough of Castleford, is now used as a local events venue.
History
Symmetry in Opposition, sculpture by Diana Dean
After significant industrial growth in the mid-19th century, largely associated with the coal mining and glass industries, a local board of health was formed in 1851. The local board established its offices in a new building, which became known as the Town Hall, in Carleton Street in the 1880.[1] Castleford became an urban district in 1894[2] and a municipal borough in 1955.[3] However, by the 1960s, the Municipal Borough of Castleford had outgrown the old town hall, and decided to commission a new building to house the council's administration and also provide a venue for events.[4]
The council organised a competition in 1964, which was won by the Griffiths Lewis Goad Partnership,[5] described by Nikolaus Pevsner as a firm of "three very young architects".[6] The winning design offered two large function rooms, the largest with a capacity of 700 people.[7] The building was designed in the Brutalist style and clad in pre-cast concrete. The first phase of the building, consisting of the offices and events venue, was opened by Katharine, Duchess of Kent on 14 March 1970.[8] The proposed second phase, a council hall, was never built.[7] Sculpture for the building was commissioned from Diana Dean.[9]
The building ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged Wakefield Council was formed in 1974.[10] However, the building continued to be used as a local events venue. In 1980, Henry Moore donated a sculpture, "Draped Reclining Figure", which was placed outside the building, but it was removed in 2012 due to concerns around possible theft.[11]
In 2022, the council considered closing the events spaces due to increases in energy prices.[12] The following year, the council described the building as "under-utilised", and proposed to sell it off.[13][14]
Architecture
The five-storey offices and three-storey events space form two sides of a square, on Ferrybridge Road, and the two are linked only at ground floor level. They are clad in precast concrete. There is a basement car park. The offices consist of two blocks linked by a staircase and lift tower, with each storey stepped back from the one below.[5]
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