St Ives Guildhall
St Ives Guildhall is a municipal structure in Street An Pol, St Ives, Cornwall, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of St Ives Town Council, is a locally listed heritage asset. History The first municipal building in St Ives was a medieval guildhall in Fore Street which was completed in 1490. The local portreeve, John Payne, who held meetings in the old guildhall, was hanged as a rebel during the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549. In the 1820s, civic leaders decided to demolish the old guildhall and replace it with a market hall. The new market hall, which included a lock-up on the ground floor and an assembly hall on the first floor, was completed in 1832: the area became a municipal borough with the building functioning as its headquarters in 1835. The assembly room was used as a courthouse as well as a civic meeting place. Following a significant increase in population, largely associated with the fishing industry, civic leaders decided that the town needed a purpose-built guildhall: the site they selected in Street An Pol, was occupied by a mansion known as The Retreat, which had been the home of the Anthony family and, later, of