The Old Town Hall is a Tudor based building, originally three cottages, and it had a major rebuild in 1744 and then again in 1896. Melcombe Regis, which is across the Town Bridge and is now known as the town centre for Weymouth, had its own Town Hall while the Old Town Hall was Weymouth’s. The fierce rivalry between the two ports was finally settled in 1591 when an exasperated Queen Elizabeth, fed up with all the claims and counterclaims between the two ports, decreed they should unite as the Borough of Weymouth & Melcombe Regis and the conjoinment was emphasised by the erection of a wooden bridge in 1597 connecting the two ports. The present Guildhall was built in 1836 in Melcombe to replace an earlier wooden Guildhall, and this newer hall gradually took over as the new Town Hall for Weymouth & Melcombe Regis and hence the adoption of the prefix Old for the one on the Weymouth side.