Old town hall and court house

The Old Courthouse, formerly known as the Old Town Hall, is a town hall that has been converted into a club. It was built in 1850 by Robert Blee and has been altered since its original construction. The building is made of granite ashlar and features a slate roof. It has a double-depth plan, is two storeys high, and consists of three symmetrical bays in the Doric style. Notable architectural features include raised quoins, a first-floor string-course, and a triglyph frieze.

At the center of the façade, there is a wide recessed porch supported by Tuscan columns arranged distyle in antis. The porch includes a triglyph frieze with roundels on the metopes and a cornice, as well as channelled rustication finished as quoins around the entrance. The entrance has panelled double doors, with the top panels being glazed. Above the porch is a tripartite sashed window set within an architrave with pilaster jambs, a plain frieze, and a prominent cornice. Each floor has two 12-pane sashed windows; the ground floor windows have quoined surrounds, stepped voussoirs, and panelled aprons, while the upper floor windows feature broad shouldered architraves. The building is topped with a crowning frieze of triglyphs adorned with wreaths and has mutules beneath the projecting eaves. Gable chimneys complete the exterior.

Inside, there is an imperial staircase with stick balusters, and a full-width room on the first floor that was formerly used as a courtroom, though it has been altered.

Historically, the building was constructed under the Small Debts Act of 1846, which allowed the Redruth court to pursue smaller debts without needing to go to the assize courts in Bodmin. Robert Blee, who designed the building, was known for inventing mine safety technology; his initials and the date of construction are displayed on the left side of the main elevation. In the late 19th century, the terrace where the building is located was referred to as Blee’s Terrace. The building later served as the offices of Thurstan Peter, a solicitor and historian who excavated Neolithic and Iron Age settlements on Carn Brea in the late 1890s, as noted on a plaque on the front elevation.