Merthyr Old Town Hall, Merthyr Tydfil: archaeological building survey
The First Floor (Figure 4, Plates 27-44) Access to the council offices was from the ornate main staircase that led upward to the first floor (Plate 27). The staircase divided into a left and right staircase part way up, and opened onto the corridor and balcony, opposite and on each side, of the Mayor’s parlour. The rooms (Plates 34-36) on the first floor of both the council and court, as might be expected, given that the common supporting walls follow through from the basement and ground level, generally match the pattern of the ground floor rooms (F1 to F13). The common layout of the council offices extended to the number of fireplaces, each one blocked in, of which there was probably at least one in each of the main rooms. Similarly, the layout of the first floor internal perimeter corridor was of the same pattern seen on the ground floor corridor (Plates 28 and 29). The differences that were noted occurred within the rooms that were built over and above the corridor side exits (F4 to the north and F7 to the south). These rooms had a larger floor-space corresponding to the width of the corridor below them and in addition, a room and adjoining anteroom were located over the main entranceway of the west elevation. Two of these rooms are said to have had particular civic functions, one as the original council chamber (F4, Plate 30) and the other the Mayor’s parlour (Plate 32), which led to a balcony from which announcements could be made to the townspeople. At a later date the councillors are thought to have held their meeting in the county court room (F12) possibly because the original chamber became too small for their purposes. The original council chamber was the located on the corner of the north and west elevations and had ornate ceiling decoration (Plate 31, CMP, p32). The small room known as the mayor’s parlour was located in the centre of the west elevation and its exterior balcony was reached through panelled doorways and decorative wooden surrounds incorporating seven lights, some with stained glass. The anteroom to the parlour held a built in secure safe, manufactured by C H Griffiths, Cannon Street, London (Plate 33), on the south side and on the north side, opposite the safe, was a door to the stairway to the attic and clock tower. Apart from the known and named rooms of the council chambers it was not possible to determine the function of the majority of rooms during the current survey. However as the mayor’s room and council chamber are on this floor, it is possible that the more important civic matters were carried out on this floor, and some of the rooms were for the use of court officials. The county court offices were accessed from steps on the north elevation leading up to the first floor perimeter corridor (Plate 37). There were only two large rooms on this floor. The northern room (F13, Plates 38 and 39), accessed from the corridor, possibly served as a hall, whilst the southern room was the county court chamber (F12, Plates 41-43), originally fitted with raised platforms for seating. The courtroom had a half-hipped wooden ceiling with decorative octagonal inlays, and was supported by decorative cast-iron trusses (Plate 44). A similar ceiling with cast iron trusses was noted in the hall (F13, Plate 40). All the other fittings had been removed prior to renovation work. A major alteration to the hall was the addition of a staircase in the southeast corner and possibly the addition of another smaller staircase diagonally opposite the first staircase in the same room. These staircases were probably inserted when the building became a nightclub. There is little difference in the layout of the rooms on the first floor recorded in the survey to that depicted on the surviving 19th century draft plans (Plate 49). There is
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