Godalming Borough Hall, Bridge St, Godalming, Waverley, Surrey, England, UK, GU7 1HY

Godalming Borough Hall is a municipal building in Bridge Street in Godalming, England. The building is the meeting place of Godalming Town Council. Following significant population growth, especially after the London and South Western Railway reached the town in 1849, the area became a municipal borough with the Pepper Pot as its town hall in 1875. In May 1907 tenders were invited from contractors to extend the public hall in Bridge Street to the west to create new municipal buildings for the borough. The extension was built in red brick with stone dressings and the work was completed in 1908. The design of the enlarged structure involved an asymmetrical main frontage with ten bays facing onto Bridge Street; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured arcading on the ground floor, three sash windows with stone surrounds on the first floor and a pediment above with an oculus in the tympanum. The left hand section featured, in the central bay, a doorway with a canopy on the ground floor and a panel containing the borough coat of arms on the first floor. The right hand section featured, in the end bay which slightly projected forward, a round headed doorway on the ground floor and a tri-part sash window on the first floor with a pediment above. The building continued to serve as the meeting place of Godalming Borough Council for much of the 20th century, but ceased to be the local seat of government when Waverley Borough Council was formed with its headquarters in Guildford in 1974. Waverley Council moved to new council offices in The Burys just behind the borough hall in 1980. The borough hall subsequently became the meeting place for Godalming Town Council. Works of art in the borough hall include a portrait by Godfrey Kneller of the locally-born sailor, Admiral Sir John Balchen, who became governor of the Greenwich Naval Hospital in March 1743