A large hall used for the transaction of the public business of a town, the holding of a court of justice, assemblies, entertainments, etc.; the great hall of the town-house or municipal building; now very commonly applied to the whole building. Also attrib.
1481–90. Howard Househ. Bks. (Roxb.), 460. Item, for pottes that ware brokyn in the towne hall.
1538. London in Lett. Suppress. Monast. (Camden), 223. [At Reading] Ther towne hall ys a very small howse, and stondith upon the ryver.
1697. Lond. Gaz., No. 3336/3. Colchester, Oct. 28. Yesterday the Mayor … proclaimed the Peace before the Town-Hall and Dutch Bay Hall.
1701. in Gentl. Mag., LXXXVIII. II. (1818), 601/2. We inned here at the town-house, the town-hall being over part of it.
1897. R. N. Bain, trans. Jókai’s Pretty Michal, xxii. 172. The clock in the town-hall tower struck eight.
