Tower and Town, August 2020 (view the full edition)Charles Edwin Ponting FSA (1850-1932)Marlborough is lucky to have a very fine Town Hall. It was built in 1901/2 on the site of an earlier building and was designed by a successful and prolific local architect Charles Ponting. He was born in Collingbourne Ducis, the son of a forester. He began his training in the office of Samuel Overton, an architect in Burbage, and spent part of his apprenticeship in the masons’ and joiners’ yards at Savernake Estate gaining both practical and theoretical skills.
Ponting was an Anglo Catholic and served as churchwarden at St Mary’s in Marlborough. His high churchmanship may well have informed his apparent belief that gothic was the only appropriate style for church buildings. He was eclectic in his approach to style in his designs for secular buildings however. These were many and varied including Lockeridge and Dauntsey’s schools. The two houses he designed in Marlborough at Hyde Cross and Clements Meadow show the influence of the ‘arts and crafts’ style which came to the fore in the late 19th century.
Ponting lived and worked in Lockeridge and latterly at Wye House in Marlborough. Tragically his wife died in childbirth at the age of 20 although his twin daughters survived and lived with him for the rest of his life. It is said that ‘he had great energy and business skill but was a quiet and modest man equally at home with builders and aristocrats’. With thanks to Tony Nicholson: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/9752/page/20541/view/ Andrew Bumphrey |
Initially he was employed as an agent on the Meux estate at Overton (broken up by sale in 1906) working on many small buildings there. In 1878 he designed St Michael’s at West Overton which was paid for by the estate. This must have established his reputation because in 1883 he was appointed diocesan surveyor for the Wiltshire portion of the Salisbury Diocese and later for Dorset and Bristol. Over 50 years he restored many churches and designed and built 15 new ones. 
He was also the architect for Marlborough College where he designed the new gym on the site of the old Bridewell Prison incorporating some of the old prison windows into the design. This propensity for re-using features from previous buildings is also evident in his design for the new Marlborough Town Hall where I believe that he may have incorporated columns and possibly the cupola from the old building into the new one.