The town hall, which was the meeting place of Hastings Borough Council, is a Grade II listed building.

[5][a] In the 1870s, following significant population growth largely associated with the seaside tourism industry, civic leaders decided to procure a more substantial town hall: the site they selected was a triangular plot in Queen's Road which had been occupied by a row of terraced houses.

[11] It was designed in the English Gothic style and officially opened by the mayor, Councillor W. F. Revill, on 7 September 1881.

[11][12] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Queen's Road; the central bay featured an arched doorway, a stone balcony and a pair of tall stained glass lancet windows with bar tracery with cusped circles (with bars radiating from a central rose window) on the first floor with a gable above.

[1] Four carved panels were erected on the eastern side of the building illustrating "Hastings Fishermen boarding French Pirates", "The Landing of the French and their Defeat", "Queen Elizabeth Granting the Charter to the Corporation" and "Cinque Port Ships Going to meet the Armada".