Summary

Former Assize Courts and Shire Hall, built in two phases fronting the river between 1878 and 1881 and St Paul’s Square between 1881 and 1883 to designs by Alfred Waterhouse for the County and Assize Courts; extended in 1899, 1905, 1910 and 1926, now Magistrates’ Courts.

Description

Former Assize Courts and Shire Hall, built in two phases fronting the river between 1878 and 1881 and St Paul’s Square between 1881 and 1883 to designs by Alfred Waterhouse for the County and Assize Courts; extended in 1899, 1905, 1910 and 1926, now Magistrates’ Courts.

MATERIALS: the roofs have a green Westmoreland slate covering, and the walls are constructed of red Suffolk brick with red Ruabon terracotta dressings. The 1910 extension has a Westmoreland slate roof, red brick walls and Ketton limestone dressings. The cast- and wrought-iron railings were manufactured by Hart, Son and Peard.

PLAN: the building is roughly C-shaped on plan, fronting St Paul’s Square to the north and the River Ouse to the south. The riverfront building constructed between 1878 and 1881 comprises a rectangular-plan range facing the river and two perpendicular rectangular-plan courtrooms to the rear (north); an additional bay was added to the east in 1905, and further extended by two additional bays in 1926. The street-front building added between 1881 and 1883 has a rectangular-plan hall to the north of the courts and a rectangular-plan street-front range overlooking St Paul’s Square. The Muniments Room to the west, added in 1899, is roughly square on plan. The 1910 extension to the east of the street-front range is rectangular on plan, with an attached canted council chamber to the rear (south).

EXTERIOR: the street-front elevation of the 1881 building is three storeys over a raised basement (the ground floor), and mostly symmetrical with a central projecting porch over the ground floor flanked by full-height four-storey canted bays, a tripartite window to the right side and a single window to the left side. The pitched roof has a green Westmoreland slate covering and terracotta ridge tiles and finials, and two slender oblong chimneystacks over the central bay. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in English bond, with red terracotta dressings including a machicolation cornice over the second floor, and panels of lattice decoration over the first floor and central bay of the second floor. The windows have terracotta surrounds, and the larger windows have mullions and transoms. The central bay has a lucarne dormer to the third floor, which bears the construction date 1881 on its gable and contains a three-light window with terracotta mullions. The third floor of the full-height canted bays have lancet windows with terracotta mullions. The gabled porch bears a terracotta coat of arms of Bedford, and an ornate receding archway features pointed arches, a multifoil arch, and two quarter-engaged columns on each side. The terracotta ornament continues on the interior of the arch, which retains decorative wrought-iron folding gates; stone steps rise with a central handrail on a wrought-iron balustrade to an internal pointed arch containing double wooden doors with decorative wrought-iron strap hinges. The ground floor is enclosed by wrought-iron railings linked by a decorative cast-iron rail, manufactured by Hart, Son & Peard. The side elevations of the front range and hall are gabled, and the hall has a large pointed-arch and traceried window to each gable.
A small courtyard along the west side leads to the Muniments Room, added in 1899, a flat-roofed two-storey building over a raised basement; the brickwork and terracotta dressings of the 1881 building were replicated, though the levels differ and the 1899 windows contain geometric tracery. The ground floor has four stone steps to a four-panel door with a rectangular overlight; wrought-iron railings to the right surround the basement. An additional storey and multi-pitched glazed roof were added in 1929, and the parapet bears a terracotta band of floral panels and the date of extension.
On the east side of the 1881 building, the three-storey extension added in 1910 has a pitched roof covered in green Westmoreland slate and three tall red brick chimneystacks to the ridge with stone dressings. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in English bond, with Ketton limestone dressings and a limestone plinth to sill height. The street-front elevation has five bays of windows of varying sizes, with stone mullions and transoms and leaded casements. The eastmost bay is gabled over the second floor, and has a double-height canted bay projecting from the ground and first floors. The second bay from east has a flat-arched stone door surround with ‘1901’ and a festoon carved in relief over the lintel, and recessed double wooden doors with 10 panels to each. The westmost bay has a segmental carriage arch, which leads to a rear courtyard.

The riverfront elevation facing south to the River Ouse was constructed between 1878 and 1881 and is three storeys in height and five bays in width, with projecting gables to the central and outer bays. The pitched roof has a green Westmoreland slate covering, terracotta ridge tiles and finials, and three oblong red brick chimneystacks. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in English bond with terracotta dressings, including a balustraded parapet, a pointed arch on each gable containing panelled ornament, and a continuous band of latticed panels over the first floor. The windows of the upper floors generally have six lights with terracotta mullions and transoms, and the ground floor windows have two lights with terracotta mullions. The central bay has an oriel window to the second floor, and a pointed arch spans the ground and first floor, with chamfered reveals and recessed pointed and multifoil arches. Within the arch, stone steps rise to a recessed first-floor entrance, having double half-glazed doors, sidelights and overlights within a segmental arch. To the east, a projecting bay was added in the same style in 1905, and was further extended to the east in 1926 with an identical projecting bay and a recessed bay. An opening was punctured through the ground floor of the projecting 1905 and 1926 extensions around 1970, providing a public walkway along the riverfront; the ground floor windows on the riverfront were removed and the openings lengthened.

Within the rear courtyard, the east side of the 1878 building has terracotta dressings, three large windows to the court room with mullions, transoms and stained-glass, and windows and an entrance to the ground-floor cells. The rear elevation of the 1905 and 1926 extensions continues the terracotta balustraded parapet, latticed band, and dressings of the riverfront elevation. The 1905 extension has a segmental-arched door surround, containing late C20 doors. The rear (south) elevation of the 1910 extension has an attached three-storey canted projection (the former council chamber) with a flat roof, red brick walls and limestone dressings. It has clerestory and ground floor windows with stone mullions and transoms and leaded lights, and the ground floor retains one chamfered limestone door surround containing a panelled door. A first-floor enclosed bridge was added around 1970 linking the rear of the former council chamber and the 1926 extension.

INTERIOR: The entrance of the 1881 building from St Paul’s Square has double half-glazed panelled doors, sidelights and overlights, all with stained-glass margins and leaded lights, providing access to a small lobby. From the east side of the lobby, panelled double doors provide access to a waiting room, subdivided, with low-level wall panelling under the bay window and a substantial marble fireplace. From the south side of the lobby a round arch provides access to a large hall, aligned east-west, with a hammerbeam roof on stone corbels, wall panelling to dado height, ornate coloured floor tiles by Craven Dunnill and Godwin, and decorative cast-iron and marble-topped radiator guards. An imperial or double staircase was added to the east side of the hall in 1910 when an office extension and council chamber were added to the east. From the west side of the north wall, six-panel doors provide access to offices in the street-front range. The coloured floor tiles continue west into the stair hall, which has a stair with cast-iron balusters and a moulded handrail to the ground floor and second floor of the street-front range. The second floor has a corridor on the south side running east-west, and partitions with glazed borrowed lights to the rooms to the north. The former judge’s accommodation on the third floor is accessed by an enclosed stair in the northwest corner, and has three principal rooms, each with a plain fireplace and stone hearth surround, and four-panelled doors throughout. From the first floor, a corridor runs south along the west side of the building to the Muniments Room, built in 1899, and extended with an ornate cast-iron spiral staircase to the second floor in 1929.
From the centre of the hall, a corridor runs south through the 1878 building, off which there are three half-glazed doors to the courts to the east and west, and half-glazed double doors to the offices to the south in the riverfront range. The east court has a hammerbeam roof on stone corbels, and wall panelling to dado height. The upper gallery at the north end has curved benches in three sections and a half-glazed door to a rear stair, while the lower gallery has long curved benches, and the courtroom retains original court furniture to the dock, prosecution, defence, clerk, magistrates, witness and probation sections. The upper and lower galleries are separated by cast-iron radiator floor panels, and the lower gallery is separated from the courtroom by wrought-iron railings and a moulded handrail. The south wall has three full-height arches behind the magistrates’ desk, flanked by panelled wooden doors to the retiring rooms to the rear. The inner (west) wall has a first-floor wooden balcony on corbels, with two shouldered arches and wrought-iron railings separating an upper and a lower level, a stained glass window on the north wall, and a door on the south wall to the second-floor landing of the 1878 stair. The west court is a near mirror image, except the gallery benches are straight rather than curved, and the jury retired downstairs to a rest room on the ground floor rather than on the same level. The retiring rooms to the rear and offices in the riverfront range retain original four-panelled doors and fireplaces throughout, with plain wooden mantels and marble fire and hearth surrounds; the higher status rooms retain six-panel doors and more decorative fireplaces. To the rear of the west court, an ornate wrought-iron gate and stair provide access to a central corridor under the courts, off which half-glazed office doors and cell gates survive. On the first floor, an open-well three-quarter turn stair to the rear of the west court provides access to the second floor of the riverfront range, with cast-iron balustrades and moulded wooden handrails, lit by a large stained-glass window on the west wall. On the north side of the stair landing two panelled doors provide access to the courtroom balconies. On the south side, a panelled door provides access to the library, and double doors provide access to a magistrates’ court. The library has an exposed king-post truss, two original chandeliers with replacement light fittings, and integrated bookshelves with cages on the west wall either side of a wooden fireplace with a marble fire and hearth surround. The magistrates court has two exposed queen-post trusses, a wrought-iron chandelier, fireplaces on the east and west walls, each with a wooden mantel and panelled overmantel, and marble fire and hearth surround, and a decorative cast-iron and marble-topped radiator guard under the window; a retiring room off the north side retains a plain wooden fireplace with a marble surround. The 1905 extension to the east has a three-quarter turn stair on its west side, and the 1926 extension has a half-turn stair in its northeast corner, both replicating the cast-iron balustrade and moulded wooden handrail of the 1878 stair. The riverfront room of the 1905 extension retains a fireplace with a classical wooden mantel and overmantel, and glazed red tile surround.
The 1910 extension to the east of the 1881 building has offices in its front range overlooking St Paul’s Square, accessed from an oak stair at the east end and a partitioned corridor running east-west. From the east side of the 1881 hall, a corridor leads east to a polygonal former council chamber, now a court, partially remodelled in 1938; the interior retains a coffered ceiling, stepped cornice with a continuous band of fasces (the ancient symbol of magistrates), and wall panelling to clerestory height with brass window-opening furniture. The seating is arranged in a U-plan facing the magistrates’ desk at the north end, with curved sections of leather-upholstered folding seats and desks (probably 1938). The north wall has a pair of double panelled doors, a sunburst clock in a panelled arch over the magistrates’ desk, and a balustraded public gallery over, which has been screened off but retains the cornice and wall panelling of the chamber below. Protective screens have been introduced on the east and southeast side of the former council chamber and some original furniture removed or replaced in those sections.

History

Bedford lies in the shallow valley of the River Great Ouse, and from the Middle Saxon period evidence appears for the beginnings of a settlement at ‘Beda’s ford’, a key river crossing point. The Middle Saxon core of Bedford developed on the north side of the river with an early street pattern (still recognisable) and was surrounded by a defensive ditch. In the C10 and C11, Bedford was important both as a trading centre, with coins minted in the town, and as the central burh of the shire. The town’s main north-south route, comprising what is now High Street to the north of the river and St Mary’s and St John’s Streets to the south of the river, was developed by this time. After 1066, Bedford became a stronghold of the new Norman regime and during the reign of William II, a motte and bailey castle was built in a strategic position on the north bank of the river and then rebuilt in stone. A period of unrest, however, led to a siege of the castle in 1224 and, when it fell, Henry III ordered it to be dismantled. Despite political struggles, the town experienced a period of consolidation during the Norman and Medieval periods, when local commerce flourished and religious houses and hospitals were founded. The population of the town was decimated by the Black Death in the C14, and a new river crossing at Great Barford undermined the local economy by drawing traffic and trade away from the town. There was little further growth and the town was largely contained within its Saxon framework, as can be seen from John Speed’s map of Bedford dated 1610.

The dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII dealt a further blow to the town’s prosperity but its fortunes began to revive with the receipt of letters patent from Edward VI, allowing the foundation of a grammar school. Bedford also benefitted from the River Navigation Act, which made the River Great Ouse navigable between Bedford and King’s Lynn (completed in 1689). The town became the headquarters of Cromwell’s army between 1646 and 1647 and the puritan influence established during the Civil War lived on after the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, when the town became a centre for non-conformist preachers such as John Bunyan. Despite this prosperity, Bedford remained of modest size through to the end of the C18, as illustrated on Thomas Jefferys’ map of 1765. An Improvement Act in 1803 allowed for the erection of a new river bridge between 1811 and 1813 (widened in 1938), and clearance of the Market Square. Continuing prosperity in the early C19 was accompanied by modest growth, but by far the most dramatic expansion of Bedford followed the building of the Midland railway in 1873, linking the town with London, and associated industrialisation.

It was not until 1752 that a dedicated and permanent Shire Hall or Sessions House was planned for Bedfordshire. A site was acquired by the Duke of Bedford on the south side of St Paul’s Square, and a Session House was constructed in 1753, possibly to designs by Thomas Moore. A spacious hall occupied the depth of the building (running north-south), off which was a civil court on one side and a criminal court on the other. The courts were criticised for being too confined to allow sufficient public access, and as the only house of public assembly in the town, the building required much maintenance. Some justices began to demand a new building, complaining of ‘the foetid and unwholesome state of the courts... the accommodation for the bar is not worthy of the county of Bedford.’ The Town Council passed a resolution deploring the Shire Hall's ‘inadequate appearance.’ 6 St Paul's Square was secured, and a list drawn up of what was required: courts, justices' meeting-rooms, Clerk of the Peace office, accommodation for the borough, judge's lodgings, and room for the police.

In March 1878 it was decided to approach Alfred Waterhouse of London (1830-1905), a prolific architect whose long list of works include the Prudential Offices in Holborn (Grade II*), the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, and Manchester Town Hall (both Grade I). The new accommodation was to be built at the back of the old Sessions House, between it and the river. Waterhouse did not like the limitations of the site, stating ‘the building would of course lack all architectural appearance towards St. Paul's Square, and the offices could hardly be so convenient... as if they were rebuilt.’ He took particular trouble with the internal arrangement of the courts and drew on his recent experience at Durham, ‘slightly altered from the Manchester courts.’ The new Gothic assize courts rose behind the Georgian building between 1878 and 1881, overlooking the river. In 1880 the justices once more presented that the Shire Hall was inadequate, and plans were prepared by Waterhouse to sweep away the Georgian building and replace it with a spacious baronial hall (aligned east-west) with subsidiary rooms opening off it. The Sessions House was demolished in 1881, and its foundations used in the new construction and some of the Ketton stone in the windows of the new entrance hall. Waterhouse added a third storey to St Paul’s Square ‘to give the building dignity and interest.’ The judge's lodgings, a two-bay three storey building, intended to be built on the east side, was sacrificed to economy and judge’s accommodation was instead provided in the attic of the front range overlooking St Paul’s Square. Waterhouse carefully considered the furniture and fittings, including clock cases in each court (manufactured by John Bull of High Street), coal-scuttles and fire-screens in the committee rooms, and lamp-posts on the pavement outside, and a budget of £1,000 was set for the new furniture.

In 1888 the Local Government Act set up County Councils, and the minimal accommodation provided in the Shire Hall soon became inadequate. A small extension was built in 1899 to accommodate assistants to the Clerk of the Council; this is probably the Muniments Room to which an additional storey was added in 1929. On the riverfront, a single-bay extension was added to the east side in 1905 to designs by A Corby, to house the Assistant Solicitor’s Office, Judge’s Room and Clerk of the Peace and County Council. The riverfront elevation was extended east by a further two bays in 1926 for the Treasurer’s Department by F W Smart and S C Jury, the County Surveyor. On the street frontage overlooking St Paul’s Square, an extension was added to the east side in 1910, providing education offices to the front and a Council chamber to the rear, designed by Percy Adams and Charles Holden, with W H Leete, County Surveyor; the interior of the Council Chamber was partially remodelled in 1938. Shire Hall was occupied by the Assize Courts until 1972, after which it became used by the Crown Courts, and from 1986 the Magistrate Courts.

Reasons for Listing

Bedford Shire Hall is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a confident and accomplished design by Alfred Waterhouse, a prolific architect, a high proportion of whose works are listed and some at high grades;
* for the high architectural quality of both the riverside elevation and front elevations to St Paul’s Square;
* for the expert planning of the building, which displays Waterhouse’s flair for planning and satisfying the complex requirements of a judicial and civic building;
* for the survival of a high proportion of the historic fixtures and fittings, especially in the entrance hall and courtrooms.

Historic interest:

* for the important role this judicial building and its predecessor played in the civic life of Bedford;
* for the contribution this impressive building makes to the evolution of historic St Paul’s Square.

Group value:

* for its historic and functional group value with other listed buildings on St Paul’s Square and the waterfront, in particular the Church of St Paul (listed at Grade I), and the Town Hall, Cowper Building and Bedford Bridge (each listed at Grade II).

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Shire Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26408309

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)