Description: Showing the Corn Exchange, which opened in 1850. Designed by T C Hine, it comprised of an exchange room 77 feet by 55 and nearly 40 feet high, a clerk's office, a newsroom, with suitable offices, and a residence for a house-keeper. The approach was by a large inner portico or colonnade, communicating with the chief room by wide folding doors in the centre and with the office and principal staircase by doors on the side. The room was lighted by a series of span roofs, entirely glazed with cast plate, and supported by truss beams, with laminated bows, and with brackets resting on carved stone corbels. The iron work was made ornamental by gilding, and by being painted a rich blue. There were forty-five stalls, of elegant construction. The exterior of the building presented a substantial and respectable appearance, and was executed in brickwork, with moulded stone dressing. The style of architecture was a combination of the English and Italian, (and was after the type of an old Latin Grammar school-house, at Appleby Parva, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, which is said to have been designed by Sir Christopher Wren). The building cost altogether £3,000. The news room was approached by a stone staircase, with arcades on each side of clustered columns, which were made of polished Derbyshire spar marble. The building is still there, now called 'O'Reilly's' club and Bars. The Old Victoria railway line ran directly under this street. (There are photographs showing the whole surface of the length of the street ripped up whilst the tunnel was dug, then the road was re-laid over the top of it.) The architect of the Corn Exchange, Thomas Chambers Hine, was born in London in 1813, the eldest son of hosiery manufacturer Jonathan Hine. In 1834, Hine completed his architecture training in London and moved to Nottingham. In 1848, he won a national competition to design a pair of agricultural workers' cottages and published a monograph (MS 575/3) containing a specification and designs for them. Important commissions followed including the Nottingham Corn Exchange (1849-1850) in Thurland Street, a factory for Hine and Mundella Ltd (1851) in Station Street, and the rebuilding of Ogston Hall, Derbyshire (1851-1864) and Flintham Hall, Nottinghamshire (1851-1857). Hine was as versatile as he was prolific and applied a variety of styles to the many houses, hospitals, schools, churches and railway stations that he designed in the East Midlands. Hine's later projects included the rebuilding and renovation of the castle, shire hall, and courts in Nottingham. He was in partnerships with William Patterson in the 1830s and 1840s, Robert Evans until 1867, and finally, his son George Thomas Hine. T.C. Hine was also an enthusiastic building conservationist, lecturer on archaeology and architecture, and was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1876. He died in Nottingham in 1899.