Description

GLOUCESTER

SO8218NE BEARLAND
844-1/7/8 (North side)
23/01/52 Crown Courts
(Formerly Listed as:
WESTGATE STREET
(South side)
Shire Hall)

II

Assize, quarter session and county courts, now crown courts.
1816, with C20 alterations. By Sir Robert Smirke for the
county magistrates in conjunction with the building of the
Shire Hall, Westgate Street (qv). Ashlar, slate roof. Severe
Classical style.
PLAN: an axial block comprising two full height, semicircular
court rooms both backing onto central suites of judges'
chambers and service rooms, all enclosed within an ambulatory
corridor at ground-floor level; the entrance passage from the
Shire Hall leads into the corridor at the north end of the
main north-south axis. At the south end on the axis an
entrance porch containing steps rises to the level of the
corridor; the porch projects from the block between flanking
porters' rooms; above the corridor a semicircular public
gallery to each court room reached by stairs at either end; in
the basement cells and offices.
EXTERIOR: facing Bearland the symmetrical, apsidal end of the
main block is a polygon of nine equal facets in two storeys
expressing the ambulatory corridor at ground-floor level, and
the tall gallery to the southern court room above; a raised
band at the gallery-floor level and a band below the shallow
coped parapet; in the centre the single-storey, projecting
entrance porch and the flanking porters' rooms, all with a
continuous cornice at the same level as the raised band at the
gallery-floor level on the main block.
On the porch above the cornice a shallow parapet and on each
of the flanking rooms a taller parapet or blind attic capped
by a cornice with blocking course; in the front wall of the
porch the entrance doorway, approached by two stone steps, is
a large, plain, semicircular arched opening enclosing wooden
fanlight with radiating glazing bars, double, fielded panel
doors between similar fixed side panels.
On the front of each of the porter's rooms a sash with glazing
bars (3x4 panes), and on the ground floor in each facet of the
main block a sash with glazing bars (3x4 panes) lighting the
corridor; on the first floor in the central facet and in each

alternate facet an arched window with glazing bars (4x5 panes)
with a central side hung casement and radiating bars in the
head, in each of the other facets a blind, plain semicircular
niche of similar size; the exterior of the northern polygonal
end of the main block has similar details.
C20 single storey additions on the west side of the block are
not of special interest.
INTERIOR: southern court room with judge's bench raised within
a wide, segmental-arched recess, the soffit of the arch
coffered. In the curved face of the wall behind the gallery
niches alternate with the windows. Generally all the fittings
renewed in early C20. The north courtroom not inspected.
A good example of the more developed form of courtroom plan,
with separate courtrooms and hall.
(BOE: Verey D: Gloucestershire: The Vale and the Forest of
Dean: London: 1976-: 239; VCH: The City of Gloucester: Oxford:
1988-: 249).

Listing NGR: SO8294718641

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Crown Courts at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q26561515

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.

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