Albany Town Hall (Western Australia)

Albany Town Hall is a public building on York Street in Albany in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. It was the first civic building constructed in the town.

The town hall is a two storied building with a stone exterior and four-faced clock tower. It is situated on the corner of Grey Street West and York Street in the centre of Albany. The hall has gallery space on the lower floor with a 310-seat theatre on the upper floor. The building is an example of Victorian Free Classical architecture and was designed by an Adelaide firm, Henderson, Marriot and Company, in 1886.

It is constructed from locally quarried granite masonry and finished with stucco ornamentation externally and plastered brickwork internally. The hall has a ground floor, first floor and gallery level along with other levels within the clock tower. The building has a rectangular footprint with the clock tower centrally located on the front facade, which dominates the streetscape. The tower is topped with a copper roof and a flagpole.

Originally the building housed municipal and commercial offices on the ground floor with the public hall on the first floor. The hall provided a venue for cultural and community events such as theatre, cinema, meetings and dances.

Planning for the building commenced in late 1882 when a meeting of the Albany Municipal Council adopted a works programme for the following year, provided that a loan of £6,000 was procured. The works included a Town Hall with Municipal Offices, for which £2,000 was set aside. The Governor, William Robinson offered the council land to the value of £500 to be sold to pay for a suitable piece of land of their choice. A block at the current site on York Street was chosen and then acquired.

In 1884 plans for the building had been completed and tenders for construction had been issued.

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