With building on the long- awaited new library going on apace, the Town Hall is shrouded from view until work is completed in late summer.

The Grade II-listed building has recently been the home of the reference library and a dance studio but it was once at the heart of local government.

Development at York Place, on land formerly owned by Colonel WV Rolleston, began in 1888 with the New Swindon Local Board offices, the centrepiece of what was originally to be called Trafalgar Square.

More than 20 architects submitted plans for the new offices. These were eventually whittled down to six, but arriving at a final decision was too difficult for the members of the Local Board.

Eventually, a referee from London called Roger Smith was called in and the commission went to Brightwen Binyon.

Binyon, who was born in Manchester in 1845, was an artist, wallpaper designer and architect.

He was an associate of the Arts And Crafts Movement and had collaborated with Victorian heavyweights William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones.

In November 1889 James Elsdon was installed as clerk of the new works.

Work began in the summer of the following year when the foundation stone was laid by Henry Kinneir, the clerk of the Local Board.

A time capsule containing copies of the two rival local newspapers, the Swindon Advertiser and the North Wiltshire Herald, along with a parchment inscribed with the names of the Local Board members, the architect, contractor and clerk of the works, was placed beneath the stone.

The red-brick building with Bath stone dressings and a distinctive clock tower was opened by the Marquess of Bath on October 21, 1891.

In 1900 Old and New Swindon became one authority. The Local Board building, strategically situated between the old and new towns, became the seat of local government.

In 1915 the building included offices for the town clerk, the borough surveyor, the borough treasurer, the medical officer of health, the assistant overseer, rate collectors, inspector of nuisances and the secretary of the education committee.

However, by the 1930s the building was inadequate to house the borough council offices and its growing staff.

A recreation ground in Euclid Street was earmarked for development and the new Civic Offices opened there in 1938.

Future plans for the town hall remain, like the building, under wraps, but its place at the heart of Swindon is firmly assured.