County Buildings And Judges House

County offices and Judge's House, Stafford

This is a significant group of civic buildings comprising a Judge's House dating from 1799-1802, designed by Joseph Potter Senior, and County offices constructed in 1893-1895 with a further extension to the left in 1899, designed by HT Hare.

The Judge's House is built in ashlar with a parapeted roof and presents a three-storey elevation with a six-window range and a higher three-window range to the right. The rusticated ground floor is topped by a cornice with blocking course. The six-bay range features round-headed arches forming a loggia, with those to the right decorated with triple keys and two cartouches to the spandrels. Cast-iron railings with decorative finials and two gates front the building. The left part of the ground floor contains two windows with twelve-pane sashes and an entrance at the left end with overlight and side lights to a five-fielded-panel door. The right portion, altered in the 1890s, has three-light ovolo-mullioned-and-transomed windows with leaded glazing flanking an entrance with architrave, triple key and segmental pediment over paired half-glazed doors. The right end displays three double-chamfered cross-mullioned windows. The first floor has three windows with twelve-paned horned sashes and five with four-paned sashes, plus one blind window to the centre of the right end. The second floor has similar six-pane sashes.

The Martin Street facade is executed in Baroque Revival style with Arts and Crafts influences. This asymmetrical elevation of two storeys with attic comprises an eight-window centre with projecting wings under hipped roofs and a lower gabled pavilion to the right end containing a carriage archway. A dentilled cornice crowns the composition. The entrance features an architrave and segmental pediment with small lights and relief carving. The ground floor has square windows with stepped voussoirs, while the first floor centre has double-transomed mullioned windows with leaded glazing. The wing to the right contains a Venetian window with flanking round windows. Dormer windows have lead finials, and the wings are topped with cupolas clad in copper.

The County offices are constructed of brick with ashlar dressings and a graduated slate roof with multiple stacks.

The interior spaces are exceptionally rich and well-preserved. The entrance hall features five-panel doors with segmental hoods and a fireplace with Ionic columns and a painted overmantel displaying the county arms, with a coffered saucer dome above. A staircase leads to a barrel-vaulted landing flanked by groin-vaulted passages with fluted piers supporting half-columns and bowed timber balustrades. The council chamber is a square room with a central dome, marble Composite columns, niches containing figures by W Aumonier, and two Venetian windows with Ionic pilasters and rich relief work above. The other two sides feature recesses and round windows over pedimented entrances with contemporary fittings.

The Oak Room features panelling and fireplaces at each end with architraves, pulvinated friezes and cornices; de Morgan style tiles accent the fireplace, and a plaster modillioned cornice and coved ceiling with round windows complete the space. The White Room has a barrel-vaulted ceiling and white painted panelling with Ionic pilasters over the dado, a fireplace with egg-and-dart moulding, paired marble columns and a fluted frieze and cornice, topped entablature and bull's eye windows at the ends. The Library features an Ionic corner and saucer dome on pendentives with rich relief plasterwork; bookcases have cartouches and festoons over them, and the fireplace incorporates de Morgan style tiles with an enriched overmantel and painting above. The ground floor includes a groin-vaulted corridor with entrances featuring eared architraves and fielded-panelled doors with roundels above.

Plasterwork throughout was executed by F.E.E. Schenck, and original light fittings remain in place. The Judge's House was extended by 1879.

This represents an exceptionally well-preserved example of a late nineteenth-century civic building retaining complete interior spaces, and stands as one of Stafford's finest public buildings.