Boston Sessions House

Boston Sessions House is a purpose-built courthouse dating from the 19th century, constructed with an ashlar stone frontage and brown brick sides and rear with stone dressings, topped by lead roofs.

Plan and Circulation

The building is rectangular, almost square in plan, with a complex configuration designed around segregated circulation routes for different users. The principal south elevation contains three entrances, each serving distinct groups. The right-hand (east) tower entrance opens into the Magistrate's hall, leading up the most elaborate staircase to the Magistrate's Robing Room on the first floor and the strong room on the second floor. The left-hand (west) tower provides access for lawyers via a plainer staircase to their waiting room on the first floor. Both the lawyers' waiting room and the Magistrate's Robing Room connect directly to the former Magistrate's Retiring Room, which occupies the central three bays of the frontage, and from there into the Court Room. The central public entrance opens into the main hall, which leads to an even plainer rear staircase ascending to the public gallery. Cells located in the centre of the ground floor have a separate staircase leading straight into the dock. The Court Room itself occupies the rear, three-storey part of the building and can be accessed directly by all users with minimal possibility of contact between them.

Exterior

The symmetrical frontage has a two-storey, three-bay centre flanked by advanced tower-like wings of three storeys. It features deeply crenellated, Gothic panelled parapets, with the Royal Arms at the centre, and a cornice with carved foliation. The centre bays are subdivided by stepped buttresses which rise through the parapet and are surmounted by tall, shield-bearing lions. The central entrance doorway has a moulded arch surround and double-leaf, plank and muntin doors, with a traceried panel above. It is flanked by two-light windows with a transom and cusped heads which also have a traceried panel above. The first floor has a tall, central, three-light window with a transom, tracery to the head and a rectangular hoodmould, flanked by similar two-light windows.

The identical towers have a moulded plinth and set-back, stepped buttresses. The single doorways have carved spandrels and rectangular hoodmoulds with headstops in the form of carved figures, including a blindfolded woman representing Justice. Above are canted oriels with stone roofs and Gothic panelled bases. The second floor has two narrow single-light windows. All windows have moulded surrounds.

The side elevations of the towers have a two-light window on the ground floor and narrow, single-light, blind windows with traceried heads on the upper floors, all with rectangular hoodmoulds. From here the sides are constructed of brown brick and, whilst much plainer, still have some embellishments including crenellated parapets. The two-storey east elevation has, from the left, single-light windows on a higher level than the centre on the ground and first floors, which light the staircase. This is followed by four two-light windows, with a door between the last two. All windows have stone blocked architraves with square heads. The elevation terminates in an octagonal, crenellated turret with blind arrow slits.

The more complicated west elevation continues from the tower in a two-storey section of two bays, divided by stepped buttresses, with similar windows to the east elevation lighting the staircase, followed by a Tudor arch opening on the left pierced by a window. After this, there is a single-storey element with five more Tudor arch openings, either with large double doors, pierced by windows, or blind. Above this has been built a 20th-century flat-roofed, single-storey extension in buff brick with three pairs of narrow, single-light windows. Behind these two elements is the three-storey external wall of the Court Room which has a row of six two-light Gothic windows with square-headed, blocked surrounds, giving the impression of a clerestory.

This ecclesiastical character is fully developed in the rear elevation which could be mistaken for a church. The main, central element presents a crenellated, shallow-pitched gable, flanked by stepped buttresses, and surmounted at either end by cylindrical stone chimney stacks. The head of the gable is pierced by a quatrefoil window, and there are three Gothic arch windows which light the Court Room within. The large, central window has four lights with traceried heads and is blind beneath the transom where the public gallery is located inside. The flanking windows have two lights, and all have blocked surrounds.

Interior

The interior has survived with a remarkable degree of intactness, particularly in the areas dedicated to judicial procedures. High quality materials are used throughout for the joinery, fireplaces, and other fittings, even down to the bell levers with lion's heads, all displaying a high level of craftsmanship. The interior decoration is characterised by a consistency of Gothic detailing, including six-panelled, Gothic arch doors set in surrounds with Gothic panelled soffits and jambs.

The principal areas of interest are the elaborately decorated Court Room, the Magistrate's Retiring and Robing Rooms, and the Magistrate's private staircase. The staircase is accessed via an arcade consisting of Gothic arches, two wide and one narrow, which have clustered piers with moulded capitals and bases, one of which forms the newel post, and archivolts which disappear into the walls. The elegant, winding, cantilevered staircase has an open string, stone steps, and timber handrail. It has a pair of metal balusters (part stick and part twisted) per tread which, instead of standing on the treads, are carried past the ends of the steps to terminate in pendants. This gives the impression that the stairs are floating upwards, apparently without support.

The Court Room retains all its original fittings, which are grained to resemble oak. The Magistrate's bench is on a dais at the south end, the dock containing two stands is opposite (now with a 20th-century glazed security screen), and the large table for legal representatives is in between. This is flanked by the witness stand and the benches for the jury, whilst the public gallery is at the north end. The upper half of the Court Room is clad in a sombre ashlar, pierced by the three Gothic windows at the rear and the clerestory on the west side. The lower half is panelled (also grained) with linenfold panelling around the Magistrate's dais, and plainer vertical planks around the rest of the room. The richly moulded roof trusses have Queen posts, flanked by cusped arches diminishing in size, and pierced spandrels with the same pattern. The trusses are supported on large carved stone corbels in the form of various figures. There is one room to the west of the Court and three rooms to the east, all relatively plain but mostly retaining fireplaces, which are used by the jury and lawyers.

The Magistrate's Retiring Room has linenfold panelling (which also covers the doors in this room) with a dado moulding and the suggestion of crenellations along the top. The grey marble fireplace has a moulded Tudor arch opening, above which are five panels with quatrefoils, flanked by pilasters. The grate and fender, in the form of a miniature Gothic arcade, are both intact. The cambered ceiling is divided into six main panels by moulded timber ribs, each then further divided into four, and embellished with carved bosses in the form of sleeping dragons. The principal ribs are supported by slender curved braces resting on foliated corbels. The original gas chandelier, decorated with cusped panels, still hangs.

This room leads directly into the Magistrate's Robing Room which is characterised by a rib vault, its moulded timber ribs painted white, springing from corbels and decorated at their meeting point with foliage. The plainer, grey marble fireplace is complete with fender and irons, and even retains two tall gas light fittings with Gothic panels on the mantlepiece. The gas chandelier also survives, as does the blind box above the oriel window.

In the strong room, located at the top of the Magistrate's staircase, there are fitted timber cupboards and drawers across the whole of the west wall, evidently for the storage of legal documents. The door is lined with metal and the plain, stone fireplace has fitted iron shutters, to minimise fire risk.