The town hall in Brighton is one of the most extraordinary buildings of its kind anywhere in Britain.

It is a large structure but surprisingly hard to find. It has a classical design spoilt by never being completed. Inside it is dominated by a vast staircase which takes up much of the space yet for years it also contained all the town’s main offices. Even today it has the mayor’s parlour, register office and a museum.

Instead of being at ground floor level, the main public room and council chamber is on the top floor. It was once the biggest venue in Brighton.

Thackeray spoke on the Four Georges there and was scathing about George IV. When asked why he did not speak in the Royal Pavilion, the novelist replied: “I don’t like to abuse a man in his own house.”

Dickens moved some people in the audience to tears when he read extracts from his novels including several deaths. Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, sang there.

The town hall was designed by Thomas Cooper who was also responsible for the old Bedford Hotel. He had it built on classical lines.

It was to have been in the shape of a cross but because money ran out, the proposed southern extension was never built and it has always been T-shaped.

For more than a century, it also served as a police station and the first Jewish chief constable, Henry Solomon, was murdered there. A prisoner picked up a poker from a fire and struck the officer a fatal blow to the head.

The scene of the murder can be visited in the old police cells museum which is open to the public during the main tourist season.

Eventually the town hall became too small and many offices were moved to other parts of the town such as Grand Parade for housing and King’s Road for the borough engineer.

At one time councillors decided to demolish it and build a new one on another site. Pavilion Parade was favoured but the scheme did not go ahead.

In the end Brighton grew to like its town hall and the building was preserved with a pedestrian precinct established by its west entrance. New offices were built nearby along with a hotel.

The mayor’s parlour, moved to the Red Drawing Room of the Royal Pavilion, came back to the town hall and weddings have been held there since the closure of the register office at Royal York buildings.

Most major decisions affecting Brighton have been made in the council chamber where the public gallery feels right in the heart of debate.

But since the merger with Hove in 1997, many meetings have been staged in the more modern building in Norton Road.

Brighton town hall also has many smaller rooms which are still used for meetings particularly of committees. Imposing portraits of former mayors are on the walls of the interior.

People with a sense of history might say: “If only those old walls could speak.” But having been to hundreds of meetings, I feel the first noise they would make would be a loud yawn.