County Hall

Building in central London, on the River Thames opposite the Palace of Westminster. Opened in 1922, it was the headquarters of the governing body for London until the abolition of the Greater London Council (GLC) by the Conservative government in 1986. Part of the building now houses the London Aquarium. The main building was designed by Ralph Knott.

County Hall was built in the borough of Lambeth, on a site partly reclaimed from the Thames foreshore, running northwards along the southern bank of the river from Westminster Bridge. The main building was begun in 1911 and the southern part of the river frontage completed in 1922. The building comprised nine floors, 8.4 km/5.2 mi of corridors, and nearly 1,000 rooms. County Hall continued to expand throughout the 1930s; building work finally came to an end in 1963, with completion of the southern block extension. Later buildings, between Belvedere Road and York Road, were the work of the London County Council architects E P Wheeler and F R Hiorns, with Giles Gilbert Scott acting as consultant.

On the abolition of the GLC by the government of Margaret Thatcher, County Hall was sold to private investors.