The Old Sessions House

The Old Sessions House is a former sessions house with police quarters and cells, now used as shops. It was built between 1873 and 1876 to designs by Harbottle, with WA Goss as the contractor. The building is constructed from local grey limestone rubble with a crazed finish and fine joints, featuring Bathstone and limestone ashlar dressings. It has slate roofs that are hipped and gabled, adorned with terracotta ridge tiles and pierced cresting. The original rainwater goods have fleur-de-lis and trefoil brackets, and the building is designed in an eclectic Tudor style.

The structure is rectangular overall, consisting of a series of blocks arranged around a central stable yard, which has since been roofed over and converted into a fire station. The exterior has three storeys and an asymmetrical four-bay front, with gables on the three right-hand bays. There are two 2-centred chamfered arched doorways on the front; the right one retains blind tracery in the overlight, while the second bay doorway has been altered for a shopfront. The ground-floor features 2-light windows with a central column, while the first-floor has 3-light windows with stone architraves, two of which are in a shallow oriel with a crenellated parapet. The second-floor windows are paired lancets with drip moulds, with one in a shallow gabled oriel on brackets. The other elevations maintain a similar style, preserving most of the original windows and doors.

Inside, the previous listing description notes a former courtroom with carved stone corbels supporting an arch-braced tie-beam roof, although the seating has been removed. The cells, which have vaulted ceilings, are historically significant as they housed John Lee, known as "the man they could not hang," before his trial.