By the mid-1860s Ramsey had grown noticeably, partly because the Victorians had discovered the Isle of Man and started arriving on summer steamers in significant numbers. The Town Commissioners were appointed in 1865. Twenty years on they had grown into the kind of body that needed proper premises, so they ran a design competition and chose a site on the north side of Parliament Street. Their architect, a Mr Berrington, designed a Victorian asymmetrical block in brick with cement render - seven bays facing the street, finished in August 1889. The central bay had a round-headed opening flanked by pilasters with imposts and a moulded surround with a keystone. Above that, on the first floor, a casement window with a small balcony. Higher still, a clock under a round-headed pediment. The second bay had an oriel window jutting out, and the right-hand bay was open at ground level for the horse-drawn fire engine to come and go. At attic level, pairs of casement windows sat between chimneys flanked by Dutch gables. Inside, the council chamber took pride of place.

On 15 July 1920, King George V and Queen Mary stopped at Ramsey as part of a royal visit to the island. A platform was built in front of the town hall, the King and Queen stepped onto it, and they greeted the assembled crowd from there - the kind of public moment small Victorian buildings were designed for. Photographs of the day show a town pressed in tight around the building, hats and Union flags everywhere, the clock and pediment looking down on a sea of upturned faces. It was the high-water mark of the first town hall's life. Half a century later it was being judged tired.

In the early 1970s the Town Commissioners voted to demolish the Berrington building. The reasons would have been familiar - maintenance costs, changing tastes, a postwar conviction that older buildings were always going to be less efficient than new ones. Grimshaw Builders erected a replacement in concrete and glass in the contemporary style, and it opened in April 1974. By the late 1990s, after barely a quarter-century, the second town hall was already described as dilapidated. The decision was made to replace it again. The verdict of the local plan and of plain experience was that concrete and glass had not aged well in Ramsey's salt air. They had also not aged well in the affection of the town. So the third town hall, opened on 29 April 2002 and designed by Cornerstone Architects, was built by contractors McCard in brick and stone.

The 2002 building is described as modern style, but the design quietly admits how much was missed. The frontage runs ten asymmetrical bays along Parliament Street. The main entrance is a double-height glass opening with a segmental head and a keystone on the third bay from the right. Above the central bay sits a clock flanked by pilasters supporting a round-headed pediment - directly recalling the features of Mr Berrington's first town hall. The other bays have square-headed casements at ground level, segmental-headed windows on the first floor, and above a parapet punctuated by small square shapes, dormer windows poke out from the attic. Inside, the principal spaces are the council chamber and the local public library. The civil registry, benefits office, local job club and coroner's office have all set up here as well. It is a multi-purpose municipal building doing the work that civic life still needs done on a small island - and quietly carrying the memory, in its clock and pediment, of the building it replaced.