Old Town Hall, Woolwich

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Old Town Hall is a former local government building on Calderwood Street, Woolwich, London. It’s a Grade II listed building, built in 1842 in a neoclassical style from brick and ashlar stone. It replaced an earlier town hall (around 1839) that was sold to the Metropolitan Police. The front on Calderwood Street has two bays, while the longer frontage faces Polytechnic Street. The ground floor is rusticated, with segmental doorways on Polytechnic Street; the Calderwood Street side is stone-faced and features a “Town Hall” panel with a pediment. Inside, the main rooms were the board room and assembly hall on the first floor, and it was shared with Woolwich County Court. The building was extended in the late 19th century to add another courtroom.

After the Princess Alice disaster in 1878, the coroner held the inquest at the old town hall. In 1906 a larger town hall was built in Wellington Street, and the old building was repurposed for commercial and community use. Since 1988, the Indian Cultural Society has run a day care centre there, and the council has hosted a Citizens Advice office. A major refurbishment, including masonry repairs and removing internal partitions, was completed in 2022.