Middlesex Guildhall

The Middlesex Guildhall, a County Guildhall, was built between 1906 and 1913 by architect J G S Gibson, with contributions from Skipwith and Gordon for the sculpture work by H C Fehr. The building is constructed of load-bearing Portland stone with an internal steel frame and features slate roofs. It showcases a highly skilled design in a Free Style late Gothic manner, drawing influences from Flemish-Burgundian styles, and is notably shaped by the works of Henry Wilson and Giles Scott, particularly in its balance of carved ornamentation and plain wall surfaces.

The structure is a free-standing block with symmetrical main elevations and an impressive elongated tower. It consists of three storeys, a basement, and a dormered attic storey topped with a steep hipped roof. The façade is nine bays wide, with the entrance located in the central section, featuring a deep-set portal with a segmental arch and a large segmental arched window above, framed by canted bay-turrets. The massive tower rises behind, adorned with large segmental arched windows on the sides, flamboyant ornamentation, a piercedwork parapet, and corner turrets.

The flanking ranges and returns include stone mullioned-transomed windows, with a drip string across the ground floor that steps over the window heads. A sharply profiled cornice enhances the design. The attic storey features blind panel tracery that connects enriched flamboyant gabled dormers. The south return has a central portion that is advanced, showcasing three semicircular arched windows on the ground floor and a stone piercedwork balcony on the first floor.

The building is richly detailed with fine sculpture, including a deep, figured relief frieze above and to the sides of the entrance, extending over the canted bay-towers, along with statues under canopies and decorative finials. It also features lofty stone chimney stacks with attached "torse" shafts and good Free Gothic area railings. Notably, in the basement, there is a 17th-century gateway to Tothill Fields Prison.