As the vaguely eccesiastical windows might suggest, this building opposite the Town Hall was originally used, in 1798, as a catholic chapel.
By 1859 it was a temperance hall but its setting on the side of a hill naturally suited to tiered seating, so in 1901 it was refitted as a music hall, the Hippodrome, further modified thirty years later to become the County Cinema.
The final conversion (to date, though it's now Grade II Listed, so the external appearence can't be further modified) was in the early 1980s, when Palatine Hall became a council office building; I worked in the Planning Office for a few months in the late 1990s.