It is Grade II listed, forming a group with the market and Municipal Buildings to the south, and rows of shops to High Street West either side which were also part of Hadfield's design,[2] and which marked the transition of Howard Town from a satellite industrial village to a freestanding urban entity.

The north elevation fronts High Street West opposite Norfolk Square with the taller town hall block surrounded by four shops either side.

[3] The ground floor has vermiculated rustication and a central five-bay open arcade (leading to the market hall) with round arches and Tuscan Doric columns, flanked by single doorways with double doors and moulded ashlar surrounds and bracketed hoods.

[2] To the south of the Municipal Buildings and outdoor market, there is a large public car park surfaced with asphalt, beneath which runs the culverted Glossop Brook.

The new community became known as Howardtown – named after the Lords of the Manor who were at that time the Howards, Dukes of Norfolk – and was the most populated and important township within Glossop.

Until 1866, about 40 years after most towns of a similar size, Glossop continued to be run by the parish and manor, as the Howard estate owned virtually all the land and its agents controlled the local governance.

[8] The 23rd Glossop RVC was attached to the 6th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment even though it was in the adjacent county of Derbyshire;[9] volunteers attended the Town Hall on 10 January 1865 to enroll.

[8] In 1896, the Borough of Glossop acquired the leases, having rejected as "too expensive" Lord Howard's offer to sell the buildings outright for £10,000 (equivalent to £1,460,000 in 2023).

The following year, as part of a package of improvements, the Borough added a Baroque cupola and weather vane to Hadfield's Italianate clock tower, creating a much larger structure which has since become a key town landmark.

[11] This gave the Council the chance to bring its various offices and meeting rooms into one place, and it built and opened the Municipal Buildings at the south end of the Market Hall in 1923.

In 1927, the jewellers and clock-makers Henry Fielding and Son paid for the clock tower, originally plain sandstone, to be “gilded and redecorated”, although the white paint on the dome is much more recent.

[6] In 1974, Glossop became part of the Borough of High Peak, bringing to an end the Town Hall's role of hosting grand civic functions, as they moved to Buxton Pavilion Gardens.

The age of the fabric combined with lack of maintenance also began to take a visible toll, with water from the leaking gutters pouring down the walls of the stairwells and mouldy plaster falling away.

Subsequently, it was discovered that, as a result of earlier works to seal the leaking slates, the roof space was full of loose asbestos fibres, so it was impossible to gain access to the clock when it developed a fault, leaving the hands stuck at 12.

[12] The listing also includes the overall High Street West terrace of which the Town Hall is the centrepiece, and the iron railings and boundary piers to the market ground.