 The stone for the construction of the basement level (the current ground floor) of Bolton Town Hall was initially drawn from local quarries at Horwich. Unfortunately demand rapidly outstripped supply so stone from as far away as Longridge, Huddersfield, Halifax and Darley Dale was used for much of the building.
Most of the basement was originally occupied by the Borough police force and cells, while a large proportion of the other floors contained the sessions courts and their satellite rooms.
At the centre of the building was the magnificent Large Hall - soon to be named the Albert Hall - with its even more impressive Grand Organ.
From a modern perspective, once you subtract the Mayor's Parlour, Reception Room and Banqueting Room, this leaves very little of the building available for actual Council business: just the Council Chamber, two committee rooms and a very modest suite of offices accommodating various departments, including Waterworks, Rates, the Medical Officer of Health and the Inspectors of Nuisances (a sort of public sanitation investigator.)
When the Town Hall Committee formally dissolved itself in 1874 and transferred the responsibilty for the new building to the Finance Committee, the net cost of the project was given (with Victorian precision) as £166,507 11s 11d.
It was "trusted that the building now handed over to the Finance Committee would be handed over to competent persons to take care of it, so that the building might be preserved intact and in good order for many years to come."
By 1891 the final figure for completing all the work required had, according to the Borough Treasurer, reached £169,648 19s 10d.
 Bolton Town Hall Basement plan 1873 (now Ground Floor)
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 Bolton Town Hall Ground Floor plan 1873 (now First Floor)
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 Bolton Town Hall First Floor plan 1873 (now Second Floor)
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