The Shire Hall is a municipal building in Market Hill in

Woodbridge, Suffolk Woodbridge is a port town and civil parish in the East Suffolk District, East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is up the River Deben from the sea. It lies north-east of Ipswich and around north-east of London. In 2011 it had a populat ...

, England. The structure, which is the meeting place of Woodbridge Town Council, is a Grade I

listed building 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, Hi ...

History

From the reign of King Edgar in the 10th century, Woodbridge was the centre of the Wicklaw Region and developed as a county town in its own right with its own shire courts. After 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 ...

were removed from Melton, a courtier to

Queen Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudor. Her eventful reign, and its effect on history ...

Thomas Seckford Thomas Seckford or Thomas Sakford Esquire#History, Esquire (1515–1587) was a senior lawyer, a "man of business" at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, a landowner of the armigerous Suffolk gentry, Member of Parliament,M.K. Dale, 'Seckford (Sakford ...

, decided to commission a new sessions house for the

Liberty of St Etheldreda Ely ( ) is a cathedral city and civil parish in the East Cambridgeshire district, in Cambridgeshire, England, northeast of Cambridge, southeast of Peterborough and from London. At the 2021 census, the built-up area had a population of 19, ...

. The building was arcaded on the ground floor, so that corn markets could be held, with a courtroom on the first floor which Seckford gave to the county in perpetuity. It was designed 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 ...

, built in red brick and was completed in around 1575. The design provided for access to the courtroom at either end of the building using external stone staircases with

wrought iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.05%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4.5%), or 0.25 for low carbon "mild" steel. Wrought iron is manufactured by heating and melting high carbon cast iron in an ...

railings, which led up to first-floor doorways with

architrave In classical architecture, an architrave (; , also called an epistyle; ) is the lintel or beam, typically made of wood or stone, that rests on the capitals of columns. The term can also apply to all sides, including the vertical members, ...

s and carvings of the Seckford

coat of arms A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon f ...

. At the east end, the doorway was flanked by a pair of

niche Niche may refer to: Science *Developmental niche, a concept for understanding the cultural context of child development and growth *Ecological niche, a term describing the relational position of an organism's species *Niche differentiation, in ec ...

s and surmounted by a gable containing a window and a clock, while at the west end, the doorway was flanked by blind brick panels and surmounted by a gable containing a window and an oculus. The north and south elevations, which had each five openings on the ground floor, were each fenestrated by three

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 windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double glazing) of glass. History ...

s on the first floor. The appearance of the building was enhanced by the installation of

Dutch gable A Dutch gable or Flemish gable is a gable whose sides have a shape made up of one or more curves and which has a pediment at the top. The gable may be an entirely decorative projection above a flat section of roof line, or may be the terminat ...

s surmounted by small

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

s at either end of the building in the 17th century, and by the infilling of the openings on the ground floor in the early 19th century. Meanwhile, the west end of the market hall was leased for use as a fire station in 1817. A village pump, with

Doric order The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

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 * Optical microscope#Objective turret (revolver or revolving nose piece), Objective turre ...

s and a

pyramid A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...

-shaped roof, was paid for by the Seckford Foundation and installed outside the west end of the building in 1877. After the courts service recommended the closure of the magistrates' court in Woodbridge in 1985, the building was acquired by Woodbridge Town Council in 1987 and it subsequently became the meeting place of the town council. The room on the first floor was leased out to the Seckford Foundation, a charity formed to support young and elderly people in the town. A statue of a little drummer boy, which had been donated to the town by

Diana Keppel, Countess of Albemarle Dame Diana Cicely Keppel, Countess of Albemarle (née Grove, 6 August 1909 – 6 May 2013) married Walter Egerton George Lucian Keppel, son of Arnold Allen Cecil Keppel, 8th Earl of Albemarle, as his second wife on 24 February 1931 at St Colum ...

shortly after she moved to the town in 1962 and installed outside the local council offices, was relocated to the east end of the shire hall in March 2018. Works of art in the shire hall include a nautical painting by William Pike entitled ''The Sylph at Sea''.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures completed in 1575 Government buildings completed in the 16th century Grade I listed buildings in Suffolk Woodbridge, Suffolk W