A major restoration of Mansfield’s historic Town Hall is being proposed to reinstate original 19th-century shopfronts designed by local architect Watson Fothergill, bringing one of the town’s best-known landmarks closer to its original appearance and enhancing the Market Place conservation area.
Mansfield District Council is seeking approval to redirect £297,300 of underspent funding from its Townscape Heritage programme, which runs until December 2025, to restore the façades on the Watson Fothergill-designed extension to the Old Town Hall. The scheme also includes repairs and improvements to the rear wall facing the Memorial Garden, potentially including a new mural or poetry installation developed through a community arts project.
The Town Hall, built in 1836 to designs by William Adams Nicholson, is a Grade II* listed building that has stood at the heart of Mansfield’s Market Place for nearly two centuries. It represents the civic and architectural centrepiece of the town. To the rear, the distinctive three-storey extension by Watson Fothergill—then known as Fothergill Watson—was constructed between 1875 and 1876 by George Parsons. This part of the complex originally contained two ground-floor shops with offices above, built in the Greek Revival style and using the same local Magnesian limestone, probably Mansfield White, as the main Town Hall. The combination created a contrast between Nicholson’s neoclassical civic architecture and Fothergill’s ornate commercial design.
In the 1960s the two shopfronts were heavily altered, losing the original stone pilasters, capitals, cornices and traditional joinery that once defined Fothergill’s design. The ground-floor layout was changed and much of the original detailing removed or obscured. The council now hopes to reinstate the lost components—including pilasters, doors, windows, cornice and fascia—in keeping with the original drawings, using appropriate traditional materials and craftsmanship. Discreet security features such as roller shutters would be integrated sensitively.
The project would also tackle the neglected rear wall of the Old Town Hall, which faces the Memorial Garden created after the former indoor market was demolished in 2010. Plans include lime-mortar rendering to protect the stonework and a creative mural or poetry wall to form a more attractive and respectful backdrop to the garden, aligning with Mansfield’s wider destination branding. The artistic element would be delivered through a poet- and artist-led community competition, leaving a permanent legacy for the Townscape Heritage programme.
If approved by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, which co-finances the Townscape Heritage scheme, the Town Hall project would require a six-month extension of the current funding period to June 2026. Mansfield District Council’s Design Services team would oversee the work with architects Guy Taylor Associates, who have a long association with the town’s heritage regeneration. The capital costs are estimated at £270,000 with additional activity funding taking the total to £297,300, split between contributions from the Heritage Fund, UK Shared Prosperity Fund, Community Regeneration Partnership resources and the council itself.
Restoring the Fothergill shopfronts is seen as a fitting final investment for the £850,000 Townscape Heritage programme, which since 2018 has improved 11 shopfronts, restored upper floors for new residential and commercial uses and revived key properties along Leeming Street and the Market Place. Council officers say the economic pressures of Brexit, the pandemic and recent global instability made it harder for some private property owners to secure match-funding, leaving a small underspend that could now be used for this high-profile civic restoration.
The scheme aligns closely with the ambitions set out in the Mansfield Town Centre Masterplan, adopted in 2023, which commits to celebrating and repairing the town’s historic fabric. It complements other major regeneration projects now under way, including the £20 million Market Place Streetscaping project, the £33.5 million Mansfield Connect civic-hub development in the former Beales building, and the £18 million White Hart Street housing and heritage scheme.
