The Sessions House was a municipal facility at New Walk in

Beverley Beverley is a market and minster town and a civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, of which it is the county town. The town centre is located south-east of York's centre and north-west of City of Hull. The town is known for ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire t ...

, England. 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 I ...

History

The first sessions house in Beverley was located in a building at Hall Garth on a site which had previously accommodated the archbishop's manor house. In the early 19th century the justices decided to allow the lease on the building at Hall Garth to expire and, instead, chose to procure a new sessions house in New Walk. A prison facility or "house of correction", which could accommodate around 60 prisoners at a time, had already been built in Norfolk Street, to the rear of the proposed site for the sessions house, in 1810. The new building, which was designed by Watson and Pritchett 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 ...

, was completed in 1814. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto New Walk; the central section of three bays featured a two-storey

tetrastyle 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 cult ...

portico with full height

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 composi ...

columns; the doorway was flanked by windows on the ground floor and there were three arched windows on the first floor; there was a large

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...

containing a Royal

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...

topped with a figure of

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 ...

above. 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 the

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The sessi ...

s were both held in the courtroom. After the prisoners had been dispersed to alternative facilities in the West Riding, the prison closed in 1878 and prison buildings were subsequently converted into private housing. The sessions house continued to be used as the local facility for dispensing justice but, in the late 19th century, along with the

Guildhall A guildhall, also known as a "guild hall" or "guild house", is a historical building originally used for tax collecting by municipalities or merchants in Great Britain and the Low Countries. These buildings commonly become town halls and in som ...

, it was also used as the meeting place for the East Riding County Council until County Hall was completed in 1891. Facilities for the local police force were established in an adjacent building to the north of the sessions house and substantially enlarged when the police station became a constabulary headquarters in 1930. The sessions house continued to be used as a courthouse throughout the 20th century, latterly for the Crown Court, and repairs were carried out to the roof to extend the use of the building in 1984. It ceased operating as a courthouse in 1988 and was empty and deteriorating until it was marketed for sale in 1999. It was then converted for commercial use and re-opened as a spa, beauty salon and boutique in 2004. In March 2019 it featured in the Channel 5 television series "The House of Extraordinary People".

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in the East Riding of Yorkshire Beverley Buildings and structures completed in 1814