The town hall, which is currently used as a public library, is a Grade II listed building.

[1] The construction of the building was an initiative by the locally-born industrial chemist, Hugh Lee Pattinson, to create an events venue in the town.

[2] The site chosen was a large rectangular piece of land known as the Vicarage Croft,[3][4] which was donated to the company by the trustees of Greenwich Hospital.

[2] It was designed by Alfred Burdakin Higham of Newcastle upon Tyne in the Gothic Revival style, built in rubble masonry at a cost of £2,000 and completed in 1858.

[12] The building subsequently became home to the local tourist information office and also accommodated a branch of the Trustee Savings Bank until the late 1980s,[13] while the local public library, which had relocated to the Market Place, returned to the town hall in 2008.