St Anne’s Public Offices: Official Opening & Legacy

St Annes’s Public Offices, located on Clifton Drive in St Annes-on-the-Sea, is a prominent municipal building and a Grade II listed landmark. Constructed at the turn of the twentieth century, it originally served as the headquarters of the St Annes-on-the-Sea Urban District Council.

A local board of health had first been established in the rapidly expanding seaside town in 1878. With further growth following the town’s designation as an urban district in 1894, civic leaders resolved to commission new offices to reflect St Annes’s development and administrative independence. The chosen site occupied part of the former garden of an adjoining residence.

Designed by Thomas Muirhead in the Victorian style, the building was constructed of red brick with ashlar stone dressings and formally opened on 22 January 1902 by Councillor Louis Stott. The symmetrical façade, composed of five bays, presents a central section projecting slightly forward with a grand arched entrance framed in stone and topped by brackets supporting a flat canopy. Above the doorway, carved stone panels bear the inscriptions “Public Offices” and the date “1900.” Three distinctive bay windows dominate the first floor, flanked by pilasters, while sash windows complete the outer bays. Inside, the principal chamber on the first floor served as the council’s main meeting room.

In 1907, the building was extended to the rear to accommodate additional departments. It remained the administrative centre of St Annes-on-the-Sea Urban District Council until 1922, when the authority merged with Lytham Urban District Council to form the Municipal Borough of Lytham St Annes. The newly formed borough established its headquarters at the Southdown Hydro Hotel on the South Promenade, relegating the Clifton Drive offices to the role of an annex. The building continued to serve local government after 1974, when the new Fylde District Council was created.

Declared surplus to requirements in 2011, the building was offered for sale. The following year, St Annes-on-the-Sea Town Council proposed converting it into a heritage centre, though the plan did not proceed. A blue plaque commemorating the history of the Public Offices was unveiled in January 2016 by Richard Stanley, grandson of Councillor Louis Stott, who had officiated at the original opening ceremony.

From November 2017 to January 2019, the premises were occupied by Fylde Foodbank before once again being placed on the market. Despite changes in use, the former Public Offices remain a distinctive architectural and historical feature of St Annes-on-the-Sea, representing the civic pride and administrative progress that accompanied the town’s Edwardian development.