The Sessions House is a former judicial building in Thorpe Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. The building, which was the main courthouse for the Soke of Peterborough and is currently unused, is a Grade II listed building.

History

The original custodial facility for the Soke of Peterborough was the Abbot's Prison in Long Causeway, which had fallen into decay. The lord paramount, the Marquess of Exeter, was indicted in 1795 for allowing this to happen. It was rebuilt in the late 18th century but was deemed too small and closed in the early 1840s. The proposed layout for the new site on Thorpe Road involved an

octagon In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t, whi ...

al outer wall, a rectangular prison building at the centre of the site and an entrance block at the front breaking the outer wall at that point. The complex was designed by William Donthorne in the

Norman style The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used fo ...

, built in stone at a cost of £8,000 and was completed in 1842. The design of the entrance block involved a symmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Thorpe Road. The central bay was formed by three-storey tower with a tall round-headed doorway with a

portcullis A portcullis (from Old French ''porte coleice'', "sliding gate") is a heavy vertically-closing gate typically found in medieval fortifications, consisting of a latticed grille made of wood, metal, or a combination of the two, which slides down gr ...

on the ground floor, and five-part mullioned windows on the first and second floors. The tower was flanked by full height

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

s with

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet wi ...

s and

machicolation A machicolation (french: mâchicoulis) is a floor opening between the supporting corbels of a battlement, through which stones or other material, such as boiling water, hot sand, quicklime or boiling cooking oil, could be dropped on attackers at t ...

s. The wings of three bays each, which were single storey, were fenestrated by round-headed windows with

colonette A colonnette is a small slender column, usually decorative, which supports a beam or lintel. Colonettes have also been used to refer to a feature of furnishings such as a dressing table and case clock, and even studied by archeologists in Roman ce ...

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; from it, architrave "chief beam", also called an epistyle; from Greek ἐπίστυλον ''epistylon'' "door frame") is the lintel or beam that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can ...

s and hood moulds. There were also turrets with lancet windows and machicolations at the outer corners of the building. The entrance block incorporated a courtroom for the use of the magistrates and became known as the Sessions House. The magistrates of the Soke of Peterborough, when siting as the court of quarter sessions, had powers to try more serious cases: such powers were normally only exercised by the judges sitting in the courts of assize rather than by a mere magistrates' court. The

Liberty of Peterborough Constabulary Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom. In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society f ...

, which was formed in 1857, also established its headquarters in the complex. After the prisoners were transferred to Cambridge or

Northampton Northampton () is a market town and civil parish in the East Midlands of England, on the River Nene, north-west of London and south-east of Birmingham. The county town of Northamptonshire, Northampton is one of the largest towns in England; ...

, the prison closed in 1878. The police service took over the old prison building, but it became surplus to requirements and was demolished after the police service moved to a new police station in Bridge Street in May 1957. The sessions house at the front of the site continued to operate as a courthouse. However, as the number of court cases in the Peterborough area grew, it became necessary to create modern courtrooms. A modern magistrates' court building was completed on the west side of Rivergate in 1978, leaving space on the east side for the Peterborough Combined Court Centre, which opened in 1987. Meanwhile, the old sessions house was converted into a

Mitchells & Butlers Mitchells & Butlers plc (also referred to as "M&B") runs circa 1,784 managed pubs, bars and restaurants throughout the United Kingdom. The company's headquarters are in Birmingham, England. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange an ...

public house in the 1980s, and then, in 2002, it became a bar and restaurant. After the bar and restaurant closed, the site was marketed for sale in 2013, and, since then, the sessions house has remained unused.

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in Peterborough Court buildings in England Government buildings completed in 1842