The Shire Hall is a municipal building in Fore Street, Hertford, the county town of

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...

, England. The building, which currently serves as a Magistrates' Court, is a

Grade I listed 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 ...

building.

History

The building was commissioned to replace an earlier Sessions House which had been built in 1560 and demolished in 1768. Although a team of

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and trained under him. With his o ...

and his younger brother James Adam were selected to design the building, James took charge of the commission and the

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Geor ...

design is credited to him. The building was completed in 1771. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto the Market Place with the end three bays on both sides slightly projected forwards; the central section of three bays featured a triple arched doorway on the ground floor and a triple

sash window A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...

divided by two

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 on the first floor. A projecting clock, designed, manufactured and installed by John Briant of Hertford, was erected on the south elevation of the building in 1824. The Shire Hall was originally used to accommodate the

assembly rooms In Great Britain and Ireland, especially in the 18th century Britain, 18th and 19th centuries, assembly rooms were gathering places for members of the higher social classes open to members of both sexes. At that time most entertaining was done ...

and

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

s for the county, but it also housed the town's

corn exchange A corn exchange is a building where merchants trade grains. The word "corn" in British English denotes all cereal grains, such as wheat and barley; in the United States these buildings were called grain exchange. Such trade was common in towns ...

on the ground floor until the exchange moved into a new building in the mid-nineteenth century. At that point the courts were relocated from the first floor to the ground floor. Pevsner describes the building as "completely unadorned unless the two curved projections on the north and south are accepted as ornamental". Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act 1888 Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

, which established county councils in every county, it also became the meeting place of

Hertfordshire County Council Hertfordshire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Hertfordshire, in England, the United Kingdom. After the 2021 election, it consists of 78 councillors, and is controlled by the Conservative Party, ...

. A substantial council chamber, sometimes referred to as the "Round Room" or the "Rotunda", was established on the first floor. The

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. Th ...

and

Princess of Wales Princess of Wales (Welsh: ''Tywysoges Cymru'') is a courtesy title used since the 14th century by the wife of the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. The current title-holder is Catherine (née Middleton). The title was firs ...

visited the Shire Hall on 23 July 1906. The county council moved to County Hall, a larger and more modern complex located further from the town centre, in summer 1939. The Shire Hall continued to function as a courthouse, although the Crown Court moved to St Albans in 1971, leaving the Shire Hall solely as a Magistrates' Court. The building was completely restored between 1988 and 1990 for which it was awarded a commendation by the Civic Trust in 1992.

References

{{Listed buildings in Hertfordshire, G1 Grade I listed buildings in Hertfordshire Grade I listed assembly rooms Georgian architecture in England Buildings and structures in Hertford Court buildings in Hertfordshire Magistrates' courts in England and Wales H Government buildings completed in 1771