Salisbury 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 Wilton Road, Salisbury, England. It also accommodates the local magistrates' court.

History

All magistrates' court hearings in Salisbury were originally held in the courtroom in the west wing of

Salisbury Guildhall Salisbury Guildhall is an 18th-century municipal building in the Market Place, Salisbury, England. The building, which is the meeting place of the Salisbury City Council, is a Grade II* listed building. History The first guildhall, known as th ...

. Additional judicial facilities, to accommodate the crown and county courts, were established in Alexandra House in St John's Street in the mid-1980s. However, as the number of court cases in Salisbury grew, it became necessary to commission a more modern courthouse to accommodate the crown and county courts as well as the magistrates' court. The site selected by the Lord Chancellor's Department, on the north side of Wilton Road, had been occupied by the recreation ground for the Old Manor Hospital which had closed in 2003. Work on the new building started in October 2007. It was designed by Stride Teglown / Feilden & Mawson 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 and glass by Mansall Construction at a cost of £18 million, and was officially opened in September 2009. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage in three sections facing onto Wilton Road. The central section of eleven bays featured a single-storey entrance block, which was projected forward and accessed by a glass sliding doorway at the right-hand end. The first floor was fenestrated by a row of glass panels which were fronted by a slatted structure which was projected forward. The end sections were slightly projected forward and faced entirely with buff brick with no fenestration. A Royal coat of arms was mounted on the right-hand end section at first floor level. At roof level, the building featured prominent

modillion A modillion is an ornate bracket, more horizontal in shape and less imposing than a corbel. They are often seen underneath a cornice which it helps to support. Modillions are more elaborate than dentils (literally translated as small teeth). All ...

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...

. Internally, the building was laid out to accommodate six courtrooms. The project was awarded first prize under the courts scheme at the BREEAM Awards 2010. Notable cases have included the trial and conviction of an

Afghan Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity ** Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pas ...

man,

Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai (born 2001) is an Afghan man who murdered three men; two in Serbia and one in the United Kingdom. Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai was born in Afghanistan in 2001. From 2015, he moved illegally through many international borders, ...

, in January 2023, for the

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

of an aspiring Royal Marine, Thomas Roberts; he had already killed two other men in Serbia.

Notes

References

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External links

Court information
Buildings and structures in Salisbury Crown Court buildings Government buildings completed in 2009 Court buildings in England