The Court House

The Court House comprises three houses resulting from the conversion of an 18th-century stable block and coach house, likely dating from around 1822-8, designed by Sir John Soane. The building is constructed of painted brick with hipped graded slate roofs, incorporating lead flats. It features a central, hipped-roofed three-bay block connected by set-back two-bay links to flanking, hipped-roofed, two-bay pavilions. The structure is two storeys high. A prominent central painted stone stack consists of four square shafts with a continuous base and cornice, surmounted by tapered square chimneypots and a clock facing the front. Similar painted stone stacks are located over the end pavilions, each featuring two square shafts connected by a round-arched link, a continuous base and cornice, and tapered square chimneypots. The bay arrangement is 1:2:3:2:1. The windows are generally round-arched margin-light glazing bar sashes. Ground-floor three-light casements have replaced earlier garage doorways in the linking sections, although original lintels and straight joints in the brickwork below remain visible. Modern glazed doors are set within a central round-arched entrance and a round-arched doorway in the right-hand pavilion. The left-hand pavilion has a glazed door in a round-arched doorway on the right, with a blind round-arched doorway to the left. Return fronts on both sides consist of two bays. Single-storey, pyramidal-roofed blocks extend from the rear of the end pavilions, featuring round-arched, three-light wooden casements, the left-hand one with a small-paned tympanum. The interiors have not been inspected. Formerly the stable block and coach house for Pell Wall, the linking sections were originally single-storey. A first floor was added to the left-hand link around 1900, and to the right-hand link in the late 19th century, as evidenced by old photographs and 1967 sale documents. Soane's drawings of the former service block at Pell Wall depict a stack similar in design to those on the outer pavilions of the stable block, featuring two square shafts connected by a round arch. This stable block and coach house was replaced by a new building to the south in 1902. Photographic records from around 1911 are held in the Couzins/Powney Collection and the National Motor Museum.