Police Station With Court Room

A police station with a court room, built in 1904 and 1906, is constructed from rock-faced Portland stone with ashlar dressings, featuring slate roofs. The design comprises two distinct parts: a gabled court room set back to the left and a twin-gabled police station to the right, with former police housing extending beyond, now Nos. 1-3, Castle Road.

The court room has a one-storey ante-room topped by a balustraded parapet and a central, pedimented Doric portico flanked by sash windows within architraves that include keystones, with one sash on the return. Panel doors provide access. The main gable above holds a Palladian window with a shell motif in the arch, moulded surrounds, a voussoir band, and a coped gable. The left return exhibits four tall, two-light transomed and mullioned windows under coped gables, linked by an arch at the rainwater outlets. Other details include a moulded cill band, three raking buttresses, cast-iron downpipes on lugs, hopper heads dated 1906, and an octagonal, leaded wood ventilation turret on the main ridge. The rear wall incorporates a tall, three-light mullioned sash window, with steps leading to a boiler house, and a large brick stack at the eaves.

The police station presents a symmetrical twin-gabled front, with a slightly recessed central section above a projecting, flat-roofed porch accessed by steps. Each coped gable includes a small vent above three plain sashes within flush, chamfered surrounds. The ground floor features a tripartite sash window with stone mullions. The porch is square, containing a panelled door to the right, two sashes facing the street, and one on the left return, surmounted by a plain parapet displaying the inscription "County Police" along the front. Brick stacks are situated near the back of both ridges. A sash window is centrally placed at each level at the rear, and to the right (north) is a single-storey cell block constructed in yellow brick, spanning seven windows. This block has a gable to the east and one window at the end of the corridor; all windows are small, with segmental heads over heavy cills and protective iron bars.

The interior of the court room retains all original fittings, including a four-bay arch-braced roof supported by stone corbels, five-panel doors within moulded architraves, one featuring a pulvinated frieze at the east end, and brass door handles. The Royal Arms are positioned behind the magistrate's chair. The police station retains original fireplaces and many good panelled doors within architraves. The cell block contains six cells, two of which retain original 19th-century pattern doors. The building's confident detailing and prominent position on the road rising from Victoria Square to Fortuneswell have ensured its fabric has remained remarkably unchanged.