The Small Exchange
Imagine waiting here to go in to see the mayor or one of the councillors working at Rochdale Town Hall.
This room is an entrance lobby, like the main Exchange but for visitors and guests on official borough business. It leads the way into the mayoral apartments and has a practical, hard-wearing tiled floor.
Before the fire in 1883, the room was connected to the first clocktower which was above the entrance room next door. Much of the decoration here is about work but this time, not the cotton or wool industry. The painted ceiling shows the wide variety of jobs that were commonplace in the borough at the time the Town Hall opened in 1871.