Guildhall

Guildhall and Assize Courts, now courts. 1843–46, designed by R.S. Pope. Statuary by Thomas of Bristol. Stained glass by Rogers of Worcester. Assize Courts attached to the rear, 1867–70, designed by T.S. Pope and J. Bindon, reconstructed internally in 1961. Built in squared limestone ashlar with ashlar gable stacks and slate roof. The building features an axial through passage and stairs, with offices and courts on either side and a left-hand courtyard. Designed in Tudor Collegiate Gothic Revival style.

The Guildhall comprises three storeys, an attic and basement, arranged across a seven-window range. The front elevation is ornate and symmetrical, with a moulded plinth, two bands over the ground-floor windows decorated with folded scrollwork beneath which are sunken panels containing shields and Tudor roses, sill bands to the first and second floors, and a parapet with sunken trefoil-headed panels separated by raised semicircular-arched sections. A central four-storey square entrance tower rises to a cornice and central balustrade parapet, with diagonally-set square stacks at its corners. At each end are two-storey octagonal oriel turrets with blind Perpendicular Gothic panelling. Tudor-arched doorways occupy the centre and ends, each with splayed panelled reveals, hoodmoulds and double doors with strap hinges; the larger central doorway has square ground-floor buttresses with octagonal upper sections on either side. Windows throughout feature ogee trefoil heads with panel tracery above, moulded cills and surrounds, and leaded casements. The tower displays a two-storey oriel bay on thick brackets with paired corner colonnettes rising to round finials and a balustrade; a large Tudor-arched cross window contains four paired lights. Above this, a rectangular three-light window with label mould is surmounted by a band of scrollwork. Two two-light ground-floor windows are separated by diagonally-set square panels bearing shields; the first floor has two-light windows and the second floor three-light windows, with paired panels between displaying shields. Shallow buttresses flank first-floor statue niches containing figures of Queen Victoria, Edward III, Foster and Dunning, and Colston and Whitson; hands above hold suspended shields.

The former Assizes elevation facing Small Street is asymmetrical, comprising a twelve-window range divided 3:3:6. This elevation features red sandstone relieving arches to the upper floors, a plinth, ground-floor band, and a blind parapet with octagonal buttresses between panelled sections. The entrance tower has window sections set back on either side. The left section displays three steep gables behind the parapet, with a full-height canted bay containing cross windows at the far left; between these are paired Tudor-arched doorways within a raised section bearing sunken panels topped by crenellation, the left with double doors and the right blocked with a 20th-century window. A Tudor-arched main doorway sits beneath a first-floor crenellated oriel with attached colonnettes at the corners; the tower above has a three-light window flanked by statue niches with canted canopies, and a pyramidal roof with three steep dormers each featuring sunken quatrefoils. The right section is articulated by full-height attached colonnettes, with four-light windows between them; these sit beneath a string course on the ground floor and are mullioned on the second floor. A right-hand carriage arch as the front is set within a single-storey coped wall with the Royal Arms displayed above the arch.

Interior features include extensively modernised courtrooms, though original decoration survives chiefly in the stairwells. A central hall leads to an open-well stair with cantilevered stone treads and wrought-iron barleysugar balusters with leaf ornaments. The stair features a first-floor band of quatrefoils, a rear Tudor-arched window with a statue, and a Tudor-arched ceiling with moulded ribs springing from corbels. Similar statuary adorns the central front rooms. The second floor displays Tudor-arched vaulting with carved bosses, three statues to the sides and front, and panelled window reveals. Court 6 contains a fine relocated Jacobean-style fire surround dated 1626, originally from a house on Welsh Back, featuring paired Ionic columns supporting an entablature with carved frieze and acanthus modillion cornice, topped by a frieze with acroteria. Court No. 1 has a four-bay timber-panelled roof with arch-braced ties and three-light mullion-and-transom windows along each side with blind panels. The jurors' assembly room features painted legal corbel heads supporting timber beams.

Subsidiary features include a pair of attached wrought-iron lamp standards outside the main Small Street entrance, each with barleysugar standards, scrolled brackets and globe lanterns decorated with crowns.

The Guildhall was the earliest Gothic town hall in England, effectively incorporating decorative elements into its façade. The Assize Courts were influenced by Godwin's Congleton Town Hall and incorporated a late Norman hall in the Law Library, destroyed during the internal reconstruction of 1961. The Small Street front is set back; the returns of neighbouring buildings Nos. 17 and 22 Small Street were rebuilt in random ashlar to match the Guildhall. A hall house of circa 1100, altered in the 16th century, was incorporated into the Assize design but destroyed in 1961. Although constructed separately, the Guildhall and former Assize Courts are now functionally and internally one building.