The County Sessions House is a former

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

, England. It stands at the top of

William Brown Street William Brown Street in Liverpool, England, is a road that is remarkable for its concentration of public buildings. It is sometimes referred to as the "Cultural Quarter". Originally known as ''Shaw's Brow'', a coaching road east from the city, ...

and is adjacent to 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 The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...

, the

Steble Fountain The Steble Fountain stands on William Brown Street in Liverpool, England, to the west of Wellington's Column. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It was donated to the city by a fo ...

and

Wellington's Column Wellington's Column, or the Waterloo Memorial, is a monument to the Duke of Wellington standing on the corner of William Brown Street and Lime Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for Englan ...

. It now provides office and storage space for the gallery. The Session House 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, ...

as a designated

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

building.

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, which transferred responsibility for Kirkdale Prison to the state, it became necessary to 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 Neoclassicism, also spelled Neo-classicism, emerged as a Western cultural movement in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that drew inspiration from the art and culture of classical antiquity. Neoclassici ...

and intended to accommodate the

quarter sessions The courts of quarter sessions or quarter sessions were local courts that were traditionally held at four set times each year in the Kingdom of England from 1388; they were extended to Wales following the Laws in Wales Act 1535. Scotland establ ...

of the West Derby Hundred of the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

: 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 Merseyside County Council (MCC) was, from 1974 to 1986, the upper-tier administrative body for Merseyside, a metropolitan county in North West England. MCC existed for a total of twelve years. It was established on 1 April 1974 by the Local Gov ...

, 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 Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

stone on a

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, 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 coo ...

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

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

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 A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cu ...

with eight paired

Corinthian order The Corinthian order (, ''Korinthiakós rythmós''; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders of Ancient Greek architecture and Ancient Roman architecture, Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric or ...

columns, above which is a

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

bearing the inscription "COUNTY SESSIONS HOUSE". The tympanum contains the

arms Arms or ARMS may refer to: *Arm or arms, the upper limbs of the body Arm, Arms, or ARMS may also refer to: People * Ida A. T. Arms (1856–1931), American missionary-educator, temperance leader Coat of arms or weapons *Armaments or weapons **Fi ...

Lancashire County Council Lancashire County Council is the upper-tier local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Lancashire, England. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashire is smaller than the ceremonial county, which additionally includes Blackburn with Dar ...

. The windows have round arches and are flanked by Ionic

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

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 ''Nisi prius'' () (Latin: "unless before") is a historical term in English law. In the 19th century, it came to be used to denote generally all legal actions tried before judges of the King's Bench Division and in the early twentieth century for a ...

court and one for the crown court) and the Grand Jury Room on the second floor. It also contains

barristers' chambers In law, a barrister's chambers or barristers' chambers are the rooms used by a barrister or a group of barristers. The singular refers to the use by a sole practitioner whereas the plural refers to a group of barristers who, while acting as s ...

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 ...

, 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