[1][3] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing onto Quay Street; the design of the building, which was arcaded on the ground floor, involved a tetrastyle portico with Ionic order columns on the first floor supporting an entablature and a dentilled pediment.

[1] A clock tower with a cupola was erected in 1887–8 in the southwest corner of the building to celebrate Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887.

[1] The building continued to serve as the headquarters of Newport Borough Council until 1967, when it was converted to the island's main law courts.

[4] Newport Council and its successor Medina Borough Council, were subsequently based at the former town clerk's office at 17 Quay Street in Newport,[5][6] but, by the mid-1980s, civic leaders increasingly operated from the more substantial facilities at Northwood House in Cowes.

[11] Works of art in the guildhall include a portrait of the Italian political leader, Giuseppe Garibaldi, who visited Brook House, the home of the politician, Charles Seely, in 1864.