The Shire Hall is a municipal facility in Tindal Square in

Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. It is a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The current building was commissioned to replace an ageing 16th sessions house at the north end of the High Street which hosted the

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388 (extending also to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535). They were also established in ...

and which had been supplemented by a smaller building which hosted the nisi prius court. The new building, which was designed by John Johnson in the

classical style Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the works of the Roman architect V ...

with a

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building sto ...

façade, opened in July 1791. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Tindal Square; the central section of three bays, which projected slightly forward, featured three arched entrances on the ground floor which were originally open; there were three windows on the first floor interspersed with

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns supporting a large pediment containing a clock. Above the first floor windows were carvings depicting

justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

wisdom Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, ...

and

mercy Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French ''merci'', from Medieval Latin ''merced-'', ''merces'', from Latin, "price paid, wages", from ''merc-'', ''merxi'' "merchandise") is benevolence, forgiveness, and kindness in a variety of ethical, relig ...

. Internally, the principal rooms were a corn exchange and two court rooms on the ground floor and there was a large assembly room on the first floor. In 1856, after a crowd entered the building to attend a trial of five men charged with murder while poaching, the staircase collapsed killing one youth and seriously injuring four others. Rather than using the shire hall for county council administration, as many other county councils did, the leaders of

Essex County Council Essex County Council is the county council that governs the non-metropolitan county of Essex in England. It has 75 councillors, elected from 70 divisions, and is currently controlled by the Conservative Party. The council meets at County Hall ...

established two small offices on the north side of King Edward's Street. Formal meetings of the full county council were held in London until County Hall was completed in 1909, in order to minimise travel for county councillors working in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

, so the shire hall continued to used primarily as a judicial facility. However, the shire hall's function as a judicial facility reduced with the opening of the new Crown Court in New Street in the 1980s and ceased completely with the opening of a new Magistrates' Court in New Street in April 2012. In 2019, after the building had lain empty for seven years, the county council appointed the developer, Aquila, to submit proposals for a mixed-used development in the building. Works of art in the shire hall include three statues of classical female figures by the sculptor, John Bacon, as well as chimney pieces at either end of the assembly hall containing panels carved by

Charles Rossi John Charles Felix Rossi (8 March 1762 – 21 February 1839), often simply known as Charles Rossi, was an English sculptor. Life Early life and education Rossi was born on 8 March 1762 at Nottingham, where his father Ananso, an Italian from Si ...

References

{{reflist C Essex County Council Chelmsford Grade II* listed buildings in Essex Government buildings completed in 1791