The Old Court House

BICESTER SHEEP STREET SP5822S (West side) 3/114 No.5 (The Old Court House) GV II

Court house, now offices. 1864. Coursed squared limestone with ashlar dressings; banded Welsh- and Westmorland-slate roofs with stone stacks. Main range plus rear wing. Gothic style. 2 storeys, now further divided. 4-window front has the entrance to extreme right - a Caernarvon-arched doorway within a pointed-segmental arch with a carved and traceried tympanum - above which is a carved royal arms, and a single-light window, also with a Caernarvon head within a pointed-segmental arch. The other bays all have 3-light stone-mullioned windows with Caernavron heads, the continuous label mould linked to that over the doorway, and running between carved grotesques; at first floor, are tall 2-light windows in pointed-segmental arches with foliage labels stops, all with trefoil-headed lights and central roundels. The tall steep-pitched roof, with crested ridge tiles and 3 triangular dormer ventilators, has large stepped gable parapets plus a similar but smaller gable over the entrance bay. The left main gable contains a large rose window below a pointed-segmental arch. Rear has similar first-floor windows plus a tall lateral stack. Short rear wing returns on left. Interior: arch-braced collar-truss roof with pierced spandrels, the posts springing from stone corbels carved with faces and stiff-leaf foliage. (V.C.H.: Oxfordshire, Vol.VI, p.19; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, p.456).

Listing NGR: SP5853222433