Curator's choice - artefacts

Ceremonial silver trowel

Ceremonial silver trowel presented to Alderman Shirl Mussell on the occasion of laying the foundation stone of Wimbledon’s new Town Hall, 1930.

At the time Wimbledon’s first Town Hall was built in 1878, the population of the suburb was just 15,000. Over the next fifty years, Wimbledon swelled its population fourfold to around 60,000. The old Town Hall was about the size of a large double-fronted house and by the late 1920s was woefully inadequate. In 1929 it was demolished and a new larger Town Hall built on the site (this is the building now occupied by Tesco supermarket).

Foundation stones were laid on February 22nd 1930, by the Mayor (Councillor G.T. Burrows, J.P.) and Alderman Shirl Mussell F.C.I.S., a former Mayor and now Chairman of the Town Hall Committee.  The silver trowel presented to Shirl Mussell for the ceremony by the architects - Bradshaw, Gass & Hope of Bolton, is beautifully crafted in silver, hallmarked Birmingham 1929 and fitted with a turned and hand-carved oak handle. The engraved inscription is exquisite. The new Town Hall was opened on 5th November 1931 by HRH The Prince George, later Duke of Kent, President of the All-England Lawn Tennis Club.

Dimensions: length 230mm; width 95mm. LDWIM : S148