Sessions Court

Sessions Court, built between 1885 and 1887 by T.D. Barry and Son, is an ashlar-faced building located on Chester Street in Birkenhead. It features an enriched classical style with a high basement and a principal storey that has three bays, including advanced outer bays and a continuous colonnade. The central bay has an entrance in the rusticated basement, with paired doors that have low relief panels dated 1887 in the architrave, adorned with foliate swags, rosettes, and caryatids, flanked by two windows on each side. The principal storey showcases Corinthian pilasters and columns, a heavy modillion cornice, and alternating panels with balustrading on the parapet above. The outer bays have paired Corinthian shafts supporting a segmental pediment over a mullioned and transomed window, with low relief figures above. A tripartite window is situated behind the colonnade, along with three oculi above.

On either side of the central bay, there are two lantern towers featuring cast-iron screens to segmental arches and a pedimented cap, linked by a high parapet that has free-standing sculpted figures. The return elevations include three square-headed windows on the ground floor and ornate pedimented heads on the tripartite windows of the first floor. The lower rear ranges facing Mortimer and Brandon Streets consist of seven recessed bays, with a central door in a concave moulded architrave and two-pane sash windows on the ground floor, while the first floor has pedimented windows. Above is a balustraded cornice with urns, and axial chimney stacks. These ranges also feature terminal pavilions that balance the return of the main elevation, with a low stone flanking wall between the two advanced outer bays. Behind the side ranges is a high central block, which houses the court itself, illuminated by a series of round arched windows divided by plain paired pilasters with ram's heads. The north elevation has an enriched parapet over the cornice.