Richard Lane was the architect of the old Salford Town Hall, that was built between 1825 and 1827.  It sits in Bexley Square just off Chapel Street.  The purple arrow on the map below shows its location.

It was originally built as a Market Hall, a fact revealed by the information on the map below.  It is my version of one drawn in 1849 by which time it was indeed the Town Hall but around it were East & West Market Streets and The Market House Tavern.

This was Lane's first major commission and he went on to design other buildings in Manchester that were variations on a theme, as you can see below.  The wreath motif that he had used on Salford Town Hall was repeated again in Chorlton-on-Medlock.  Lane was responsible for the facade and first bay of the Salford building.  Borough engineers were responsible for the rest.

As you can see from the 1849 map the building was home to the business of the Town Hall but also included a police station, fire station and a court house.  Today the business of the City of Salford is conducted in the Civic Centre on Chorley Road, in Swinton.  The old Town Hall was used as a Magistrates Court for many years but in December 2010 an article appeared in the Salford Advertiser that spoke to its future. 

"A campaign to save Salford magistrates courts from closure has failed. The government has announced the Bexley Square building will shut under its budget cuts.  The plan to close it was condemned earlier this year by a union leader as an ‘outrageous attack on the citizens of Salford and our justice system’.  But yesterday in the House Of Commons parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Ministry Of Justice, Jonathan Djanogly, justified its closure by saying it was only ‘1,000 paces’ from the modern Manchester magistrates court.  The ageing Salford landmark was to be replaced by a new £20m justice centre in Eccles.  But those plans were shelved this year by the then justice secretary Jack Straw because of the economic climate. The Grade II-listed courts are in urgent need of modernisation. Parts of the building, formerly Salford Town Hall, date from 1825."

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