Merton Civic Centre is a municipal building in London Road, Morden, London. It is the headquarters of Merton London Borough Council.
| Merton Civic Centre | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Merton Civic Centre | |
| Location | London Road, Morden |
| Coordinates | 51°24′05″N 0°11′46″W / 51.4013°N 0.1961°W |
| Built | 1960 |
| Architect | A. Green |
| Architectural style(s) | Modernist style |
  Shown in Merton | |
History edit
The main building was originally commissioned on a speculative basis by a developer, Bernard Sunley & Sons, for use as commercial offices and for postal sorting.[1][2] The site selected had previously been occupied by a large post office and some other shops.[3] As part of the site redevelopment a public house known as "The Crown", on an adjacent site to the east, was demolished and subsequently replaced with a supermarket.[4]
The new building, which was designed by A. Green in the Modernist style, opened as "Crown House" in 1962.[5] The design involved a 15-storey curved structure with layers of continuous concrete panels above and below a continuous row of glass windows on each floor: the whole structure was 49.4 metres (162 ft) high.[5] Many of the council officers of the London Borough of Merton and their departments, which had previously been located at Wimbledon Town Hall, moved into the building in 1985.[6]
After civic leaders decided to co-locate all their operations at Morden, and to use it as their meeting place as well, the adjacent site to the east which had previously been occupied by a supermarket was acquired for expansion.[7] This expansion was implemented by the construction of a new three-storey block in front of the main structure: the design for the extension was more angular than the curved structure behind and involved a symmetrical frontage of seven bays facing onto the junction of Crown Lane and London Road; it featured a portico with a canopy on the ground floor and a tall oriel window stretching up from the first floor to second floor.[8] This extension contained a council chamber and a public library enabling the expanded complex to become the new Civic Centre for Merton in 1990.[1] A major programme of refurbishment works to replace all the windows in the main structure with aluminium double-glazing was completed in spring 2014.[9]
The Merton Heritage & Local Studies Centre, which was established to exhibit aspects of the history and culture of the area, moved onto the first floor of the new library area in 2009.[10][11] In 2015 the Merton Heritage & Local Studies Centre hosted a series of "War Story Days" to meet with residents and record their experiences from the First World War for a new project entitled "Carved in Stone", material from which was published on the centre's website.[12] This was followed up with a "Heritage Discovery Day" in May 2017.[13]
References edit
- ^ a b "London Road: Building Crown House, Morden". Merton Photo Archive. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ Deakin, Amy (2017). Morden and other Tourist Destinations. William Cornelius Harris publishing. ISBN 978-1911232094.
- ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1938. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Infrastructure Changes" (PDF). Merton Historical Society. 1 September 2013. p. 11. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ a b "Merton Civic Centre". Emporis. Archived from the original on 5 December 2020. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "London's Town Halls". Historic England. p. 155. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Morden". London Gazetteer. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Merton Civic Centre, showing the new library and office extension". Merton Photo Archive. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Aluminium fenestration completed throughout entire Merton Civic Centre". Hazlemere Commercial. August 2014. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Merton Heritage Centre has moved" (PDF). Merton Historical Society. 1 June 2009. p. 2. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Merton Heritage & Local Studies Centre". Culture 24. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Local war heroes' lives to be Carved in Stone". Merton Council. 13 May 2015. Retrieved 9 May 2020.
- ^ "Merton's history will be celebrated with open air cinema and marketplace at Heritage Discovery Day". Sutton and Croydon Guardian. 3 May 2017. Retrieved 9 May 2020.