Assize Courts Block

Court house block and offices built between 1788 and 1801, designed by Thomas Harrison of Chester. The building is constructed of Keuper sandstone ashlar with a slate roof and lead flashings.

Set on a sloping site, the building presents two storeys to the western front and four storeys to the east, arranged in an E-shaped plan. The facade facing Castle Square comprises 19 bays symmetrically disposed. A projecting plinth, moulded string-course and cornice with modillion frieze and plain attic run around the whole of the building.

The central projecting portion of 7 bays is finished in smooth ashlar, while the ranges to either side feature rock-faced rustication. A hexastyle Greek Doric portico with monolithic unfluted columns stands at the centre, with a second row of columns behind. The coffered ceiling above contains rows of half mutules to the sides of the coffers, with a plain tympanum and attic above finished with moulding to the top.

At ground floor level within the portico is a recession containing three arched niches with flat backs and lateral double doors with fanlights above, at the level of which runs a string course. Similar double doors in concave arched niches flank these. Above all ground floor portico bays on the first floor are square, slightly recessed panels with moulded surrounds. To either side of the portico are further double doors with rectangular fanlights and moulded door surrounds, hoods supported on fluted consoles, wrought iron lamp brackets above and slightly recessed square panels with moulded surrounds at first floor level.

The ranges to either side comprise 5 symmetrically disposed bays each. Central double doorways set in slight ground floor projections have flat heads with splayed voussoirs above. Ground floor windows of 3 by 4 panes flank these, with first floor windows of 3 by 2 panes, all with flat heads and splayed voussoirs. Slightly projecting single bays at either side maintain the same window arrangement. At either end are ground floor colonnades of 3 bays with unfluted monolithic Greek Doric columns in antis. The left colonnade is open to both front and rear; the right was originally similar but became an entrance porch when the Nisi Prius Court was built behind it by T M Lockwood in 1875, with half-columns to the centre rear and quarter-antae to the corners and double doors of 3 panels each at the centre, beneath a plain entablature.

The rear elevation comprises 19 bays symmetrically disposed. The central bay is finished in smooth ashlar, while the remainder features rock-faced rustication with ashlar dressings. The central three bays project slightly with a projecting semi-octagonal bay to the centre. The lateral bays also project slightly. The lower two floors form one continuous range; the upper two floors are recessed to form two three-sided courtyards. Ashlar bands run across at the level of the ground floor door lintels and first floor window sills. An ashlar cornice and frieze at the level of the second floor roof extends across the projections as a string course.

The central semi-octagonal bay has a projecting plinth with blind doorways to the centre of each face, lintels above and lunette windows over. First floor windows have sunken panels below arched windows. The second floor windows of the Grand Jury Room have arched heads and sunken panels below with a band at the level of the springing of the arches. The third floor contains paired sash windows of 3 by 4 panes to each face with a band extending across the facade at the level of the sills. All windows have splayed voussoirs.

The bays to either side of the central feature and the projecting lateral bays are essentially similar, with cell doors to the ground floor accompanied by lunette windows above. First floor windows are arched; second floor windows are arched, recessed and set in ashlar surrounds, with single light windows to the second floor. Between these are seven-bay two-storey ranges with cell doors to the ground floor and lucarnes above, with lunette windows to the first floor.

Interior: The Shire Hall, now the Crown Court, is semi-circular in plan with an ambulatory screen of ten monolithic Ionic columns to the curved side of the room, with antae supporting an entablature with plain ashlar frieze. The curved wall contains arched and rectangular niches with aedicular surrounds, beneath rectangular sunken panels with moulded surrounds. A coffered ceiling to the ambulatory and a semi-circular dome with painted central panels and four late 19th-century skylights to the outer edge complete the space. A screen to the centre of the flat wall comprises two columns and antae with a recess behind, originally forming the surround to the judges' seat, though the seating plan is now reversed. The plan closely resembles that of Harrison's Gothick Shire Hall at Lancaster Castle of the 1790s and derives ultimately from Gondoin's Chirurgie in the Ecole de Medecine Paris and Palladio's Teatro Olimpico at Vicenza.

Two barrel-vaulted rooms to either side of the judge's recess have panelled ceilings and lunette windows. The central Waiting Hall features six plain niches to the northern wall with pilasters between supporting a Doric entablature, with similar pilasters and frieze to the southern wall. A panelled ceiling with a central skylight of clear, pink and yellow glass decorated with anthemia lights the space.

Number 2 Court, added by T M Lockwood in 1875 as a Nisi Prius court room, has pilasters to the walls bearing a Doric entablature. Blank arches between the walls are surmounted by a coved wooden panelled ceiling with a central rectangular skylight containing coloured glass.

The Chapel contains a segmental barrel vault to the nave and a semi-octagonal chancel with an ambulatory of four Tuscan columns with projecting bases. The northern ritual western end is now blocked off with galleries removed.

The two courtyards at the right and left of the building were originally exercise yards for male and female debtors respectively. A semi-octagonal felons jail, now demolished, originally radiated from below the central bay with the governor's house in the right-hand wing. This jail was the first in England to be built on the overview principle advocated by John Howard in his State of the Prisons of 1780 and later by Jeremy Bentham in his publication Panopticon of 1791. Harrison received direct advice on planning from prison architect William Blackburn in 1784.

The contemporary observer M Dupin wrote: "The Sessions House and Panoptic prison of Chester are united in the same building which is most assuredly the handsomest of this kind that is to be seen in Europe. The interior arrangements are well-contrived and bespeak much regard for humanity. The architecture is equally simple and majestic."

The Assize Courts block remains little altered since Harrison's day, demonstrating his international stature as a Neo-classical architect and his obsessive perfectionism in executing this major commission.