Talk:Guildhall

Games

Should we bring up that Guildhalls are popular in MMORPG games?

I think that's notable enough to be mentioned. CannibalSmith 16:00, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they should be but in a separate article - guildhall (gaming). However, I am having trouble finding any reliable references to even stub an article on this; I'll redirect this to Clan (video gaming) for now. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:47, 14 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Misc

What size is a typical guildhall? How many people can usually be roomed in a guildhall? How many rooms does it have? What does a guildhall contain?

The World is an island.

The current article 'Guildhall' claims to be a disambiguation page. It is not (see WP:DISAMBIGUATION). It's a list of guildhalls, all with the exact same meaning of the term, which list is followed with what belongs on a disambiguation page named 'Guildhall (disambiguation)' (so far a redirect to 'Guildhall') : "Guildhall can also refer to: Guildhall, Vermont" and then a completely new section 'See also' showing three entries that should simply be put immediately underneath that Vermont entry.

Best create Guildhall (disambiguation), with at top: A guildhall or guild hall is a building historically used by guilds for meetings. Then cut/paste the bottom part thereunder.

And then expand the article, followed with a section like 'List of guildhalls in the United Kingdom'. And most importantly: there are other countries out there. For instance, the Low Countries used to have guildhalls in every city, often one for each trade, occasionally a hall to be used by all the city's guilds, e.g.:

The Round Table (or Tafelrond, in Dutch) in Leuven, designed 1479 by Matheus de Layens, guildhall built 1480-1487 internally comprising 3 houses, demolished 1817, reconstructed following original plans 1921^{[The World is an island 1]}^{[The World is an island 2]}
References

^ "The round table (tafelrond)". Retrieved 20 July 2011.
^ "Leuven architecture and sculptures (brochure)" (Pdf). City of Leuven (Tourism Leuven). Retrieved 20 July 2011.

Now, just a moment — Ah, it was easier done than explained. Problem solved. Though of course, the one example outside the UK is not enough. Suggestion: Google Search for 'Gildenhuis', 'Gildehuis', 'Gilden', 'Gilde', and the terms in German and French.
▲ SomeHuman 2011-07-20 16:48 (UTC)

Requested move 6 March 2026

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– My reasons are:

To be WP:CONSISTENT with the other guildhall article titles that are already in this form:
Google searching many of these pulls up references to "the Guildhall" or "Guildhall, Town" rather than "Town Guildhall". It would seem that to denizens of a town (who are typically the only ones referencing the building) it is called simply "the Guildhall". Historic England lists these buildings as "Guildhall" or "The Guildhall". Also, signage on these buildings typically says "[The] Guildhall".
EDIT: Where references are found in the form "Town Guildhall" it is often preceded by the word "the", which technically makes the "Town" part a modifier, and therefore it is no longer a proper name. Its analogous to writing "the Birmingham airport" or "the London shopping centre". In contrast, you would not call it "the London Bridge" or "the Winchester Cathedral", but just "London Bridge", "Winchester Cathedral". Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 22:09, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A more apt comparison than cathedrals would probably be Theatres Royal, which are all in the form "Theatre Royal, x" (with York Theatre Royal being one anomaly). Also consider Custom House, and Corn exchange...
This format also allows for interpretation of "guildhall" as a common noun, which seems to be preferred where possible on Wikipedia. For people who do not live in the town, the building would just as (or perhaps even more) likely be referred to as "the guildhall/Guildhall in Town" as it would "Town Guildhall". Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To nit-pick there are sme 70 articles in the first format and only 10 in the second so which is consistent with what? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 08:36, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Murgatroyd49 has a good point: in order to minimize the number of moves, there is a good case for moving them all to the format "[x] Guildhall". That said, although I wrote many of the guildhall articles, I do not have strong views. Dormskirk (talk) 09:40, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In a related case you get Winchester Cathedral, not Cathedral, Winchester. People in Winchester just refer to the cathedral. Repeat for castles and other major public buildings. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:55, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the replies.

My rational regarding incongruence with things like Winchester Cathedral (or, even more similar, town halls like Birmingham Town Hall) is that people who do not live in say Winchester are still likely to refer to its cathedral as Winchester Cathedral. Cathedrals and town halls are much more familiar entities than guildhalls, and so people refer to them by their full name.

I don't think the same is true of guildhalls; would outsiders of a town really say "we are at Leicester Guildhall", or would they just as likely say something like "we are at the Guildhall [in Leicester]", where they would likely not say "we are at the cathedral in Winchester". A more apt comparison would probably be Theatres Royal, which are all in the form "Theatre Royal, x" (with York Theatre Royal being one anomaly). Also consider Custom House.

@Dormskirk Regarding minimizing moves, I wouldn't say that that would be an end in itself, unless of course the status quo is largely preferable. I'm assuming (but correct me if I'm wrong) that most of these article titles were made to fit a blueprint, without each one being pondered over individually.

Historic England lists these buildings as "Guildhall" or "The Guildhall". Also, signage on these buildings typically says "[The] Guildhall". Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 12:21, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Titling them "<Place> Guildhall" avoids the definite article problem. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 12:47, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There are scant references to "The" being part of the actual name, rather than just a determiner; on the whole WP:DEFINITE applies.
I don't know if it does solve that problem, because if we were to accept the name as "The Guildhall" then it would not make sense to give it a different, longer name (and remove "The"); that's simply changing the name anyway.

Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 12:56, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a Guildhall where I live, but London is only 40 miles up the road and I have only ever heard it called City of London Guildhall. The next nearest one to me is Rochester, and it is advertised as Rochester Guildhall on the official tourist website for the Medway. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 16:50, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Guildhall in London (one of the few articles already titled as "Guildhall, x") seems to be almost universally referred to as some variation of what I am suggesting. Here are all the sources in the further reading section of that article:

Baddeley, John James. A Guide to the Guildhall of the City of London (Simpkin Marshall, 1898)
Barron, Caroline M. The Medieval Guildhall of London (Corporation of London, 1974)
Greenglass, Graham & Dinsdale, Stephen. Guildhall: City of London. History. Guide. Companion (Pen & Sword, 2018)
Perks, Sydney. The Restoration and Recent Discoveries at the Guildhall, London (1910)
Price, John Edward. A Descriptive Account of the Guildhall of the City of London (Blades, East & Blades, 1886)
Welch, Charles (intro.) Catalogue of the Collection of London Antiquities in the Guildhall Museum (1903)

Are you referring to when it comes up in conversation or some other sources?

Regarding Rochester, Visit Medway indeed refers to the museum as the Rochester Guildhall Museum here, but elsewhere it is referred as simply the "Guildhall Museum", including on the building's signage.

Again, I acknowledge the existence of conflicting naming styles, but WP:CONSISTENT should apply here as elsewhere. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 17:19, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As I've already pointed out, consistency would be to leave the majority as they are and convert the few where the location is second to conform. Murgatroyd49 (talk) 17:34, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I understand what you are saying, however my response to that approach was that "Regarding minimizing moves, I wouldn't say that that would be an end in itself, unless of course the status quo is largely preferable. I'm assuming (but correct me if I'm wrong) that most of these article titles were made to fit a blueprint, without each one being pondered over individually." We should not worry unduly about majority/minority but focus on the correct course of action. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 17:39, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also a Google Books search for "Rochester, Guildhall" returns mostly "Guildhall, Rochester" results Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 17:36, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Or the reverse, searching Guildhall, Rochester Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 21:45, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Rochester Guildhall is used at Visit Medway as you pointed out, but also here [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. Therefore WP:Commonname? That is also true of Barnstaple [11], [12], [13], [14]. As per other editors it is best to change the Guildhall articles that are name Guildhall, Location, than the larger amount that are Location Guildhall.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 21:09, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Couple issues with this:

Most of those refer to the museum, not technically the guildhall itself.
Where they refer to the guildhall, the word "the" is arguably preventing the construction from being a proper noun (see my edit to the RM).
I can just as easily find references in the Guildhall, Rochester form e.g.:[15][16][17][18][19][20]

Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 22:16, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I too don't have strong feelings on this, but am currently leaning weak oppose, noting that:

WP:CONSISTENT is expanded on in WP:TITLECON, which is clear that "consistency is only one of several title considerations, and it generally falls below several other considerations in the hierarchy of title determination." – so the directive to use common names is more important than being consistent, and it's not necessarily worth the disruption of lots of page moves just to enforce consistency, especially if there are doubts as to what the common names are.
WP:COMMONNAME includes the concept of "natural disambiguation", which the form "Place Guildhall" follows much better than "Guildhall, Place" – if we were having a real life conversation about guildhalls and needed to differentiate between them, it would come naturally to say "Place Guildhall".
The "Guidhall, City" form follows the naming convention in WP:UKPLACE – but that is about settlements, and while I can see that is has also been widely adopted in articles about buildings, are we sure that it does apply to those? I can not see any document building-specific naming convention, so in the absence of one, technically "Guildhall (Place)" would be the approved form of disambiguation. (Though I imagine a convention in favour of "Building, Place" could pass a RFC, especially given the many established articles using the form.)

Open to arguments otherwise, but currently sceptical. Cheers, Joe D (t) 20:38, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose a blanket move, no reason all of these should follow the same format. Strong oppose to moving the Preston Guild Hall article as all sources I can find spell it with a space in the name.

Some of these articles might be better moved, but in other cases, e.g. Lavenham Guildhall, the common name is clearly in the current format. Where there is a more even split on the common name, I'd prefer the format which does not require disambiguation, though a redirect from the other format would be helpful.

Finally, I disagree with the idea that just because someone might refer to "the guildhall in X", that we should prefer the Guildhall, X naming format. I might refer to the railway station in Leeds, but I hope we wouldn't suggest moving the article to Railway station, Leeds. Warofdreams talk 22:13, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Preston should keep the space, my mistake.

If people in general referred to it as "the railway station in Leeds" then that would become its common name; I don't mean to say that any single mention can swing the scale.

But it seems people don't think there is a need for consistency here, so I'm okay with treating these individually if that's the general preference. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 22:29, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we shouldn't sacrifice a demonstrable common name in order to be consistent. The issue, as I see it, is that the common names of these buildings is hard to gauge. What weight do we give tourist websites (which are bound to sit at the top of search results) vs. heritage site listings, books etc.

These buildings just aren't likely to ever be mentioned apart from by locals, who would simply call it "the Guildhall" or "Guildhall". My feeling is that this applies here (WP:TITLECON): Where multiple titles are available, and where titles are equally usable in terms of recognizability, naturalness, preciseness, and conciseness, then the title to be used should be consistent with titles used for similar or related topics in Wikipedia. But perhaps I am in the minority on this.

I don't see disambiguation as being a factor here, as both options disambiguate equally. Open to "Guildhall (Place)". Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 22:18, 6 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Of course disambiguation is a factor here, disambiguation is the entire basis of this discussion. We're discussing what form of disambiguation is optimal. "Comma placename" is disambiguation. Nobody calls a building "Guildhall, Bath", the comma Bath is a construct used on Wikipedia to disambiguate one of many different topics sharing the name "Guildhall". Wikipedia's disambiguation policies are therefore the guide to follow. Joe D (t) 23:23, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I should've chosen my words more carefully. I was responding to the point about natural disambiguation, by rejecting that there is a need to invoke WP:NATDIS if both of our choices already disambiguate. In other words, the need for disambiguation is solved for either way. Of course this entire discussion is about how best to disambiguate the article. But the relevant "natural" criterion here is that laid out in WP:COMMONNAME, not that found in WP:NATDIS. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 23:59, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Support except for Middlesex Guildhall, and move Preston Guild Hall to Guild Hall, Preston. This is per the usage of Historic England (only Devonport and Middlesex Guildhalls follow the style of our existing article titles, and Devonport seems not to have been an exception before a change to the listing in 1998), Cadw (see Cardigan, Carmarthen, Conwy and Llantrisant), Coflein (again for Welsh examples) and trove.scot (formerly Canmore) for Dunfermline, the only Scottish example listed.
Middlesex Guildhall shouldn't follow this style because it's the only one of these where the place name is that of a historic county rather than a town or city, so the usage is different and "Middlesex Guildhall" really is the WP:COMMONNAME. In the case of Preston, the signage says GUILD HALL in a photo of 2014 (and that appears to be the original signage), then Preston Guild Hall in a photo of 2022. Even in the latter case it still seems plausible (given the different font sizes) that "Guild Hall" is the main part of the name and "Preston" is disambiguation. The Guild Hall's page on the Visit Preston website uses The Guild Hall Preston; I reckon that should be read as having no semantic difference to The Guild Hall, Preston.
Comma-separated disambiguation is the norm for buildings in Britain and is quite common for everywhere outside North America, it's just that this has never been formalised into a guideline as far as I can tell. I investigated this here (at WT:VAMOS) and in the subsequent comments in that discussion. On that basis I wouldn't support disambiguation with brackets, unless a preference to make that the standard across the board emerged from an RfC or something similar. Ham II (talk) 15:41, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fine with these exceptions. I used AI to fill out the move template so Preston got erroneously standardized.

FWIW Guildhall of St George and Merchant Adventurers' Hall and St Mary's Guildhall are other exceptions Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 16:25, 7 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to nitpick but I am disconcerted by the (admittedly passing) references in this interesting debate to Theatre Royals. Surely the correct plural is Theatres Royal? Sorry, shutting up now. Best to all DBaK (talk) 00:12, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Justfified concern, I'm on it. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 00:47, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. You are a cup of herbal tea to my OCD-ish attack! :) All good wishes DBaK (talk) 18:36, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It depends if WP:NATURAL applies. "Guildhall, X" may be clearer if they are known as just "Guildhall" but "X Guildhall" may be acceptable as natural disambiguation since most people outside the settlement a guildhall is in would probably specify the settlement first even if the listed building entries use just "Guildhall". Crouch, Swale (talk) 19:51, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NATURAL applies when another title is preferred-but-ambiguous. I think its hard to argue that it is ambiguous what, say, "Guildhall, Stratford-upon-Avon" is referring to. Also, I think outsiders would only really use a name like "Stratford-upon-Avon Guildhall" if they had been told that this was the name of the building. But at the moment they are only being told this by ahistorical sources (and Wikipedia). Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 23:05, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NATURAL clearly does apply: the preferred name is "Guildhall". The name is not "Guildhall, Stratford-upon-Avon" -- that is an artificial construction used by Wikipedia for disambiguation. We have lots of topics here called "Guildhall" and the question is what is the best way to disambiguate between them -- a disambiguation suffix, or natural disambiguation. Joe D (t) 23:15, 8 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. I was reading "the preferred-but-ambiguous title" as referring to an actual article title that was being advocated for, rather than just the title pre-disambiguation. So yes the choice is between natural and comma-separated disambiguation. But since both are viable ways to disambiguate, and since it does not say in the guidelines to prefer one over the other, I think we revert to a discussion about the other WP:CRITERIA. Wh1pla5h99 (talk) 00:15, 9 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: "[Town] Guildhall" is reasonable as a WP:COMMONNAME. A bit like having Manchester Town Hall and Basingstoke railway station as article titles than "Town Hall, Manchester" and "Railway station, Basingstoke". I've noticed for example that a Google search for "Leicester Guildhall" (with quotes) produces 102,000 results including the official sites for the city council, museums agency and Visit Leicester. There is a separate problem with Middlesex Guildhall. Anywikiuser (talk) 11:00, 9 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: For similar reasons as Anywikiuser - certainly as far as Southampton Guildhall and Portsmouth Guildhall are concerned, those are the WP:COMMONNAMEs in use locally. "[Town] Guildhall" is just more natural than "Guildhall, [Town]" and keeps things consistent with other common buildings such as railway stations, museums, football clubs, etc. Waggers TALK 13:52, 9 March 2026 (UTC)[reply]

[TR-L_1-1] "The round table (tafelrond)". Retrieved 20 July 2011.

[TR-L_2-2] "Leuven architecture and sculptures (brochure)" (Pdf). City of Leuven (Tourism Leuven). Retrieved 20 July 2011.

[The World is an island 1]

[The World is an island 2]