Burnley Law Courts is a

Crown Court The Crown Court is the court of first instance of England and Wales responsible for hearing all Indictable offence, indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals lied to it by the Magistrates' court, magistrates' court ...

venue, which deals with criminal cases, and a

County Court A county court is a court based in or with a jurisdiction covering one or more counties, which are administrative divisions (subnational entities) within a country, not to be confused with the medieval system of ''county courts'' held by the high ...

venue, which deals with civil cases, in Hammerton Street,

Burnley Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Bru ...

, England.

History

Until the early 1980s, criminal court hearings in Burnley were held in the courtroom in Burnley Town Hall. However, as the number of court cases in Burnley grew, it became necessary to commission a more substantial courthouse for criminal court hearings. The site selected by the

Lord Chancellor's Department The Lord Chancellor's Department was a United Kingdom government department answerable to the Lord Chancellor with jurisdiction over England and Wales. Created in 1885 as the Lord Chancellor's Office with a small staff to assist the Lord Chancell ...

had accommodated a series of rows of terraced housing (Mount Pleasant Street, Howarth Street and Whittam Street). These streets had been part of the Weaver's Triangle area of Burnley and the buildings, which were in a poor state, were demolished in the 1930s. The new building was designed by the

Property Services Agency The Property Services Agency (PSA) was an agency of the United Kingdom government, in existence from 1972 to 1993. Its role was to “provide, manage, maintain, and furnish the property used by the government, including defence establishments, offi ...

in the

Modernist style Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...

, built in buff brick at a cost of £1.5 million, and was opened in 1981. The design involved an asymmetric main frontage in two sections facing onto Whittam Street. The left-hand section of four bays was well set back from the road: the right-hand bay, which was slightly projected forward, featured a four-door opening, surmounted by a Royal coat of arms, with a small

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a cas ...

on the first floor. On the ground floor, the other bays in that section were fenestrated by casement windows and were separated by

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es which supported the first floor structure: the first floor structure was

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...

ed out over the pavement, fenestrated with casement windows and clad in dark brown panels. The right-hand section was irregularly fenestrated with casement windows and featured a canted recess, containing a single first-floor window, in the right-hand bay. Internally, the building was laid out to accommodate five courtrooms. In 2008, a member of a jury in a sex abuse case was dismissed, after she used a poll on her ''

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

'' page to help her to decide whether the defendant in the case was guilty or not guilty. Notable cases have included the trial and acquittal of the actor, Peter Adamson, in July 1983, on charges of indecent assault, and the trial and conviction of another actor, Jody Latham, in December 2012, for growing

cannabis ''Cannabis'' () is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cannabaceae. The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized: ''Cannabis sativa'', '' C. indica'', and '' C. ruderalis''. Alternatively ...

in his garden: Latham was given a suspended prison sentence.

References

External links

Court information
{{Borough of Burnley buildings Buildings and structures in Burnley Crown Court buildings Government buildings completed in 1981 Court buildings in England