Frontline Hythe

Frontline Hythe. Town Hall, High Street. , The Town Hall was built in 1794 and the Jurats (Councillors) of Hythe met here instead of their previous meeting place in the Church Parvise. The ground floor undercroft was the old marketplace, where, in 1805, the wife of one of the men working on the construction of the Royal Military Canal was sold for 6 pence to a drummer at Shorncliffe Barracks., On the first floor is the Council Chamber or Guildhall which contains an oak panel, carved with the names of the Town Bailiffs and Mayors from 1349 onwards. The Town Hall was also used as a County Courtroom until the 1930s, with a cell for prisoners downstairs., The ornate Town Hall clock was added in 1871. The modern Mayoral Chair was the gift of the Small Arms Wing of the School of Infantry in 1953, when the former School of Musketry celebrated its centenary and the Small Arms Wing received the Freedom of the Borough. Fittingly, the chair is made of oak obtained from a Martello Tower situated on the Ranges., During World War I the warnings of air raids were given by the flying of a cone from the roof of the Town Hall. Minor bomb damage was caused to the building during World War II and the resulting tidying up revealed a number of old tin lamps and hoods which were retrieved from the roof space. One of these was kept in the Museum for posterity; everything else was sent for salvage to aid the war effort. , Adjacent to the Town Hall lies The White Hart Inn, first recorded in 1625. Here, in 1804, Prime Minister William Pitt met with staff and councillors to discuss the subject of coastal defences against the likely threat of invasion from Napoleon's France. This included the possible flooding of Romney Marsh and the construction of a canal to cut off the Marsh and act as a communication channel for troops.