Central Police Station And Court House

The Central Police Station and Court House, built in 1912, was designed by Briggs, Wolstenholme and Thornley. It is a substantial building of sandstone ashlar with slate roofs, occupying a corner site at the junction of Northgate and Duke Street, and incorporating a police station to the rear, beneath the court house, connected to King George’s Hall by a screen wall to the south. The building is constructed in a classical style with a large rectangular plan.

The main block is three storeys high, while a side range is two storeys with attics, both built over a rustic basement storey. The façade is arranged in 1:3:1:5:1:3:1 bays, largely symmetrical except for variations in fenestration on the side wings, and includes a screen wall to the left. The basement storey exhibits channelled rustication. The central seven-bay block features the outer bays projecting slightly with full-height channelled rustication, and a giant colonnade of engaged Ionic columns across the central five bays, topped by an entablature with a plain frieze, a prominent mutuled cornice, and a banded parapet. The parapet is punctuated by emblematic seated figures over the outer bays. Each outer bay incorporates a giant round-headed archway with splayed reveal and run-out voussoirs, containing a distyle Tuscan porch, a moulded cornice, a tall window with a metal balcony and pedimented architrave, and a bulls-eye window with an enriched surround including a scrolled keyblock. The central bays have square windows, altered glazing, corniced windows to the two main floors, and square windows above these. The lower side ranges have banded pilasters to the corner bays, round-headed doorways, window architraves with aprons and key-blocks (with the fenestration of the left-hand range being less regular than that of the right), a niche at first floor in the corner bay, a dentilled cornice, and a panelled parapet, taller over the corners. A full-height screen wall is situated to the left, also in a similar style and featuring a round-headed archway. A large two-storey range extends to the rear, fronting Duke Street with an eleven-window façade in a compatible style.

The interior features an axial public corridor with marble-faced pilasters, egg-and-dart cornices, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling with four circular skylights. Vestibules lead to Court No. 1 and Court No. 2, both retaining original panelled oak furnishings, including balconies (Court No. 1 includes a curved former Grand Jury balcony in the side wall), coved sky-lighted ceilings, and stained glass windows; one lettered "Mercy" faces the Bench and another lettered "Justice" faces the prisoners' dock. Both prisoners' docks have staircases leading down to the police station beneath, with Court No. 2 retaining remains of an original speaking tube for a policeman in attendance. Courts 3 and 4 are located on the upper floors to the rear.