File:Swanage Town Hall.jpg

English: The Town Hall was built by George Burt in 1882-3, whose bust can be seen in front of the fire place in the Town Hall chambers. Burt was the son of a local quarryman, later leaving for London to work in the contracting firm of his uncle John Mowlem. He eventually became a partner and used his wealth and influence to ‘improve’ his home town.

The Town Hall was part of Burt’s plan to introduce a sense of civic pride to Swanage. It was built to be let to the Swanage Local Board of Health which had been established in 1873 to improve the public health of the town, following an outbreak of small pox.

Unlike the old boroughs of Wareham, Dorchester and Poole, this was Swanage’s first form of civil local government. In the 1840s Swanage essentially remained a quarrying, fishing and agricultural village and Burt knew that improvements had to be made if it was to become a prominent resort or ‘watering place’.

The plans for the Town Hall were approved in July 1882. Upstairs,the Council chamber remains in use today and the neighbouring magistrate’s room is a smaller meeting room or Committee room. In the basement was a storage area for the town’s fire engine. A bell was located on the wall of the Town Hall to be rung to call the fire brigade to action and Town Hall Lane was known by many locals as Fire Bell Lane. In a way the building was part of a Victorian civic centre with the Council Chamber used as a Magistrate’s Court and the police station being across the yard in what has until recently been called the Coach House.