The County Sessions House is a former courthouse in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

Merseyside Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Mersey Estuary and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wi ...

, England. It stands at the bottom of Islington, to the east of the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

, which now occupies the building. It is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a designated 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 courthouse was commissioned to replace local judicial facilities at a courthouse in Basnett Street and at the Kirkdale Sessions House. Following the implementation of the

Prison Act 1877 The Prison Act 1877 (40 & 41 Vict c 21) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to alter the way in which British prisons were operated. Detail By the 19th century, concerns had been raised a ...

which transferred responsibility for Kirkdale Prison to the state it became necessary the establish a new

sessions house A sessions house in the United Kingdom was historically a courthouse that served as a dedicated court of quarter sessions, where criminal trials were held four times a year on quarter days. Sessions houses were also used for other purposes to do w ...

: the site selected was a row of residential properties to the east of the

. The new building was designed by the Liverpool architects

F & G Holme F & G Holme were two Liverpool architects, Francis Usher Holme (c.1844-1913), and his uncle, George Holme (1822 or 3-1915), who lived during the 19th century. Their designs include, amongst others, the County Sessions House the Municipal Annexe a ...

in the

Neoclassical style Neoclassical architecture is an architectural style produced by the Neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century in Italy and France. It became one of the most prominent architectural styles in the Western world. The prevailing sty ...

and intended to accommodate 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 ...

of the

West Derby Hundred The West Derby Hundred (also known as West Derbyshire) is one of the six subdivisions of the historic county of Lancashire, in northern England. Its name alludes to its judicial centre being the township of West Derby (the suffix ''-shire'' mea ...

of the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancash ...

: it was built between 1882 and 1884. The building closed as a judicial facility in 1984 when the Crown Courts moved to Derby Square. It was then reopened as the Merseyside Museum of Labour History, an initiative sponsored by Merseyside County Council, in March 1986. After the Merseyside Museum of Labour History closed in November 1991, the building was used by the Walker Art Gallery for offices for staff and for storage.

Architecture

The building is constructed in ashlar stone on a

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

base. Although its appearance is Neoclassical, its style is described as being "late Victorian" and "derived from

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

rather than ancient Greece and Rome". It is built in a single storey with a basement, and its front has five bays. The basement is rusticated. At its front is a portico with eight paired Corinthian order columns, above which is a

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

bearing the inscription "COUNTY SESSIONS HOUSE". The tympanum contains the arms of Lancashire County Council. The windows have round arches and are flanked by Ionic

pilaster In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...

s. At the sides, five bays have similar columns, beyond which the building is plainer, in yellow brick and stone. The interior is complex and richly decorated. It contains an Italian Renaissance staircase. Internally, the principal rooms are the two court rooms on the first floor (one door for the nisi prius court and one for the crown court) and the Grand Jury Room on the second floor. It also contains barristers' chambers and

judge's chambers A judge's chambers is the office of a judge, where the judge may hear certain types of cases, instead of in open court. Description A judge's chambers is the office of a judge, where certain types of matters can be heard "in chambers", also kn ...

, cells, and facilities for administration on the ground floor.

References

{{Liverpool B&S Grade II* listed buildings in Liverpool Court buildings in Liverpool Neoclassical architecture in Liverpool

History

Architecture

See also

References