Courts Municipal Offices Victoria Hall

The building comprises former municipal offices, courts, and Victoria Hall, originally designed as the Queen's Hotel in 1869 by Robert Scrivener and subsequently converted to a town hall between 1884 and 1888. It is constructed of red brick with white brick and ashlar dressings, topped with slate roofs and four sets of tall brick stacks.

The main facade is three storeys high with a basement and attic, featuring nine bays and projecting central and corner pavilions. The pavilions are articulated with rusticated white brick pilasters. The facade displays moulded bands at ground, first, and second floor levels, and a bracketed entablature. A projecting ashlar porch supports a central doorway, featuring coupled, rusticated columns with a carved parapet and ornate iron lamp bracket. The ground floor includes single sash windows, canted bay windows, and Palladian windows. Upper floors have a mix of single sashes, tripartite sashes, and dormers, some topped with segmental pediments.

Internally, the Council chamber retains Victorian fixtures. An Edwardian staircase is also present. No.1 Courtroom is a complete mid-Victorian court with original fixtures and fittings, including panelling, a plaster ceiling, and galleries. No.3 Courtroom is an almost complete Edwardian court with a D-plan, ornate plaster vault, pilasters, and its original fixtures and fittings. A rear Victoria Hall connects to the main building.

The left-hand side facade of the Victoria Hall is in a Baroque style, three storeys and attic high, with an eleven-bay range, a central five-bay section projecting under a pediment. The design includes brick pilasters, channelled rustication, a modillion cornice, and round-arched heads to the second-floor windows. Entrances are set within moulded stone doorcases. The right-hand side, at the rear of the complex, presents an eleven-bay range with round-arched windows on the second floor and a small octagonal lantern on the roof. The interior of the Victoria Hall has not been inspected.