Old Guildhall Museum and Gaol

The Old Guildhall stands in Higher Market Street in Looe, Cornwall. Built around 1450 in medieval style, it is a Grade II* listed building. The structure was once the meeting place of the mayor and local councillors after East Looe became a borough in 1587. A late 16th-century staircase and windows were added to the front, while inside the ground floor housed a lock-up with three cells. The first floor served as both courtroom and council chamber, where petty sessions were held twice a year. The building’s history reflects wider changes in British politics. It lost its role as a rotten borough when the Reform Act 1832 removed East Looe’s right to elect MPs. After the borough council was abolished in 1883, the guildhall passed to the East Looe Town Trust. By the late 19th century the courtroom had become a reading room and the ground floor a caretaker’s flat. In 1972 local historian Michael Maddock converted both floors into museum space. Visitors now find a small but carefully arranged museum. The ground floor displays the town stocks and smuggling artefacts from Looe Island. Upstairs, the former courtroom holds Samuel Cook’s landscape paintings and a 14th-century stone cross found at Tregoad Farm. A 17th-century Finbaker cannon, recovered from Looe Bay, rests beside the Royal coat of arms installed in 1705. The building’s uneven floors and original masonry show the weight of centuries.