WEARING a hardy pair of leather breeches, his job was to test the ale by sitting in it.

He was known as the Christchurch Ale Taster and his job was to test the ale on market days and fairs by carrying out the leather breeches test.

“If the ale was impure with too much sugar, it would cause him to stick fast to the bench on which it was poured,” says WA Hoodless in his new book, Old Town Halls of Christchurch (Natula Publications £12.95).

Not counting today’s Civic Centre, the priory town has had four town halls and Bill Hoodless’s book celebrates both the 20th anniversary of the Christchurch Historical society and, indeed, the removal of one town hall and the building of its replacement in a new location 150 years ago.

The book begins with a look at what is known about the Old Tolsey – the town’s first town hall that may have been in use from around 1150 to the mid-15th century.

After it ceased to be used as a town hall, the building in High Street, adjoining Millham Street, survived until 1788, being leased at different times to trades people including a brazier, tanner, mercer, clerk and shoemaker.

From the 15th century, however, for more than 300 years, Christchurch’s town hall was housed in a building known as the Tolsey.

And, as well as electing the Mayor, Constable and Bailiffs, the corporation’s job, in those days, was to elect the Ale Tester.

And Bill Hoodless reveals, for example, that in the year 1665, the members debated the Plague that was ravaging England… and resolved that no men from London be admitted to the town for 20 days.

The third of the old town halls (in use from 1746-1859) was a better, two-storey building built in much the same spot, at Market Square near what is today the George Inn.

But by the mid 19th century it was deemed too small and was impeding traffic.

But another issue occurred in 1850 that may have been a factor in it being replaced.

“Yet another reason contributing to the move may have been the problems from certain people then known as ‘roughs’,” writes Bill Hoodless – who is also the author of Hengistbury Head: The whole Story – in Old Town Halls of Christchurch.

“From November 5 1850 they came into the town night after night for over a month, indulging in rioting and putting the town hall at risk.”

With the town’s MP Admiral Walcott, who had retired to Winkton Lodge (until recently occupied by Homefield School) suggesting that it would be “injudicious” to merely upgrade the existing town hall, the decision was taken to rebuild it, using stones from the former building, on a meadow that had “previously been used by travelling circuses for exhibitions of horsemanship”.

The Walcott family chipped in some £600 towards the total cost and, by 1860, the fourth town hall was in use.

The move also showed “a perceived need for more policing around the hall, dating back to the 1850 riots at the existing town hall”.

The demolition of the third town hall improved the road junction and from then the fourth town hall helped promote Victorian ethics.

It opened with a reading room and was soon hosting events such as a lecture on The Great Social Evil (The seducer), soon followed by another by Mr Ripley of the Christchurch Temperance Society, as well as music concerts and other events.

But the growth of the town in the 20th century meant its days as a town hall were numbered.

In 1960 a plan for a replacement concrete town hall costing £187,624 caused a furore. A petition was drawn up and protest meetings held and – was it connected? – Bill Hoodless tells us that the town hall even received a phone call saying, “So you don’t believe in keeping skeletons in the cupboard? Look out of the window.”

A human skeleton was hanging from the flagpole that mysteriously disappeared a week or so later.

The plans for the fifth town hall, described in the book as “a masterpiece of bogus modernity” with concrete slabs, failed to become a reality.

But in 1983, the new civic offices opened in Bridge Street.

And what happened to the fourth and last of Christchurch’s town halls? The best of it can still be seen at Saxon Square where it hosts meetings and other functions and is known today as the Mayor’s Parlour.