Clerkenwell Conference Centre

Former Middlesex Sessions House, now Clerkenwell Conference Centre and Masonic Lodge

This building was constructed between 1778 and 1782 by architect Thomas Rogers. It was subsequently enlarged and remodelled on all but the principal front in 1860 by Frederick Hyde Pownall, with an ashlar-faced wing added to the south sometime between 1876 and 1914.

The building is finished predominantly in Portland stone on its principal elevation, with the north elevation in Clerkenwell Green, the elevation in Farringdon Lane, and part of the Clerkenwell Road elevation rendered with stucco and Portland stone dressings. Roofs are finished in lead where visible.

The principal front facing Clerkenwell Green displays three storeys over a basement across a five-window range. The middle three bays of the ground floor project slightly and carry a giant order of four engaged Ionic columns beneath a pediment, with the outer bays flanked by engaged Ionic pilasters. The ground floor features chamfered rustication interrupted by square-cut springing bands. Round-arched openings include the central entrance and round-arched windows, deeply recessed and set within panels of ashlar. The entrance has glazed side-lights and an overlight. Central and outer first-floor windows are round-arched with architraves, impost blocks and reeded springing bands, with a band running across the lintels of intermediate windows. Low-relief carved panels by Joseph Nollekens appear over the windows: oval medallions of Justice and Mercy, a portrait of George III in the central bay, and fasces and swords in the outer bays. Ground-floor windows retain sashes of original design with radiating glazing bars. A panelled frieze, modillion cornice, blocking course and pediment with an armorial medallion of Middlesex against foliage in the tympanum crown this elevation. An attic storey added in 1860 contains round-arched windows, and a lead-covered dome surmounts the centre of the building.

A two-storey wing extends southward from the principal front into Clerkenwell Road with a three-sided bay at the corner. The ground and first floors are faced in ashlar. The Pownall-designed elevations on Clerkenwell Road and the north side of Clerkenwell Green employ broadly similar treatment, though with varied facing materials: the basement and ground floor feature rusticated stonework with flat-arched openings having architraves formed from chamfered quoins; a broad cill band marks the first floor, with Gibbs surrounds to windows and a storey band above. Second-floor windows have eared architraves at their heads, bracketed sills and keystones. A modillion cornice runs across, with a third-floor balustrade to the ashlar-faced wing. Third-floor windows elsewhere are flat-arched with plain architraves and keystones; the three central windows in Clerkenwell Green have pediments. A parapet completes the composition. Many 6/6 sashes of original design survive on the north elevation in Clerkenwell Green and scattered elsewhere.

The Farringdon Lane elevation has outer bays to either side corresponding with the side elevations. The three central windows form a shallow segmental bay with segmental-arched openings to the ground floor, the central entrance set beneath a cartouche bearing a coat of arms. Four rusticated pilasters flank the first and second-floor windows, which are flat-arched with pilasters and a triglyph frieze to the first floor and feature balustrades and eared architraves on the second floor. A modillion cornice runs across; circular windows to the attic storey have been enlarged. Cast-iron railings border the area, dating from 1860.

The interior contains a double-height central hall, square in plan, with a central staircase rising in a single flight to a gallery that runs around all four sides of the room. Both staircase and gallery are by Pownall. The gallery is carried on cast-iron columns with foliage ornament and capitals, and on scrolled brackets, stepping up on the east side to the former Court Room. Railings and balustrade employ cast iron and brass with characteristic mid-Victorian naturalistic and structural forms. The upper portion of the hall features Ionic pilasters on three sides and engaged Ionic columns facing the former Court Room, supporting a frieze decorated with alternating roundels of fasces and caducei, crowned by a modillion cornice. The intervening wall is divided horizontally by a dentil cornice with niches and blank panels. A round-arched entrance to the former Court Room features Pownall's enrichments: an architrave of pilasters with nail-head ornament and double consoles, and an archivolt decorated with foliage. The recessed tympanum displays the armorial scimitars of Middlesex surrounded by foliage. Two entrances on the facing wall have pilaster architraves with nail-head ornament and dentil cornices on consoles. An arcaded drum with circular and semi-circular windows (some blank) is topped by a royal coat of arms in high relief above the Court Room entrance; spandrels are filled with roundel motifs enriched with oak leaf ornament. A coffered dome and lantern were added by Pownall.

The former Court Room, now designated Lodge Room no. 2, retains decorations partly by Pownall, including an elaborate panelled plaster ceiling with ribs decorated with guilloche ornament and egg-and-dart and modillion details; nine panels contain roundels apparently of recent date. The principal room to the west, in the 1860 extension, has been horizontally subdivided, but the remaining ceiling is visible in Lodge Room no. 5: a frieze of roundels in scrolling foliage with alternating fasces and caducei; modillion cornice and Vitruvian scroll ornament to the ceiling light. Lodge Room no. 3, in the south wing of circa 1900, features a dentil cornice and an octagonal panelled lantern surrounded by bands of foliage. A staircase in the north-west corner rises through four storeys with scrolled iron balusters and ramped handrail. Another staircase on the south side, extending from the first to third floors, has a curtail step, wreathed and ramped handrail, cast-iron newels and scrolled balusters.