The Shirehall is a municipal facility in Market Avenue,

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. 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

An early Shirehall was built atop the

Norwich Castle Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...

mound in around 1270 and rebuilt during the

Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

. The current Shirehall, which was designed by William Wilkins in the

Tudor Revival style Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

, was completed in 1823. The design involved a symmetrical

castellate A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

d main frontage with nine bays facing onto the Market Avenue; the central section, which projected slightly forward, featured an arched doorway, a triple window on the first floor and a shield above the window; there were

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two to ...

-shaped

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 at roof level. Important cases at the Shirehall included the trail and conviction of James Bloomfield Rush for the murders of Isaac Jermy and his son, Isaac Jermy Jermy, at Stanfield Hall in April 1849. The building continued to be used as a facility for dispensing justice but, 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

Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the top-tier local government authority for Norfolk, England. Its headquarters are based in the city of Norwich. Below it there are 7 second-tier local government district councils: Breckland District, Broadland Distr ...

. An extension to the Shirehall, to the south of the main building and known as Shirehall Chambers, was built using Bath stone and opened in 1909. The education department, and some other departments, moved to new premises at Thorpe Road in Norwich in 1929. After the county council moved to County Hall in 1968, the building continued to be used as a Crown Court until the new Courts Complex in Bishopgate was completed in 1988. The building became the Regimental Museum of the

Royal Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

in 1990. Although archives and the reserve collections continued to be held in the Shirehall, the principal museum display there closed in September 2011, and relocated to the main

Norwich Castle Museum Norwich Castle is a medieval royal fortification in the city of Norwich, in the English county of Norfolk. William the Conqueror (1066–1087) ordered its construction in the aftermath of the Norman conquest of England. The castle was used as a ...

, reopening fully in 2013. Meanwhile, the courtroom in the Shirehall was refurbished and re-opened to the public in September 2013. The Norwich Castle Study Centre, which now occupies the Shirehall, contains a number of important collections, including an extensive collection of more than 20,000 costume and textile items, built up over a period of some 130 years, and previously kept in other Norwich museums. Although not a publicly open museum in the usual sense, items in the collections are accessible to the general public, students, researchers and others by prior appointment.Norwich Castle Study Centre

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in Norfolk N Government buildings completed in 1823