HomeTown – 18 – The Old Town

HomeTown - 18 - The Old Town
Crown Graphic – Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 1:4,7/135 – Ilford FP4+ @ ASA-64 – Pyrocat-HD (1+1+100) 8:00 @ 20C

These days you probably would walk past this building without a second glance, a little bit out of the way of the downtown and overlooked by many but this building once was the centre of the town of Milton. When Milton saw incorporation as a town in 1858, the need to construct a town hall began. As a building, it served many purposes once it saw completion in 1865 as a market hall and local police station. The land it sits on was donated by Joseph Martin (one of Jasper’s sons) and once had a beautiful bell and cupola, both of which have been removed. The Bell sits in Victoria Park today. And it serves as a perfect reminder of old Milton, the historic town that still exists within the greater town of Milton today. And yet despite that many, myself included, still separate the old town from the new town. As a life long Miltonian I grew up in the old town, this building was the town hall for the first three years of my life. But as I now live in New Milton, I see some difference but count everyone as a Miltonian no matter where they live today. The hall served until 1985 when operations moved into the old County building saved from demolition, but that is a story for next week. The Old Town Hall today is renovated, and much of the interior historical elements are stripped away and houses now offices including the downtown Business Improvement Offices. Of all the buildings in the downtown, the old town hall is one of the hardest to photograph as you cannot get a direct line of sight to it because you would have to stand in the middle of the road. The light stone construction is hard to get a good meter reading without losing too much of the shadows or vice versa. Thankfully after learning a bit more of the zone system, I managed to get a good average reading and adjusted my development to get a bit more detail in the image. And I was walking around a bit without the camera before choosing the spot just up the side street to get the shot.

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