Police Station And Magistrates Court

This building comprises a Magistrates Court and Police Station, constructed between 1901 and 1902 by the Cumberland County Architects Department. It is built of Borrowdale rubble slate walling with Cumbrian Red Sandstone ashlar dressings, featuring coped gables, tall square gable stacks, and a Westmorland slate roof laid in diminishing courses. The architectural style is a severe Vernacular Revival with some Classical detailing.

The buildings are arranged linearly along Bank Street, with the Magistrates Court to the northwest and the Police Station to the southeast. The north-west front (front elevation) is stepped, including a single-story L-shaped courthouse to the left. A wide gable facing the street incorporates a tall Venetian window. The main entrance is set within a shallow porch, featuring a wide segmental pediment supported by a large bracket and a tapered square column. Further to the right are two single-light openings and a two-light window, all with flush ashlar surrounds and undivided sash windows. The right-hand end connects to the Police Station, a two-story, three-bay structure. A portion with domestic proportions to the left has a central doorway with a quoined surround and a shallow depressed arched head below a dripmould. Tall three-light mullioned windows flank the doorway, situated above steeply-pitched gabled dormers. To the right is a further three-bay range set back from the street frontage, with two doorways, a two-light dormer rising through the eaves, and a shallow three-light window at eaves level. An advanced gable at the right-hand end has a former full-width ground floor opening now infilled, with a three-light window above.

The north-east side elevation has a six-bay range extending towards the southeast, featuring an open porch with a Gibbsian surround, approached by a flight of seven stone steps and leading to a six-panel door with a rectangular overlight. A tall curved wall with plain flat copings encloses a rear yard.

The Courthouse retains a near complete contemporary interior, including a canopied witness stand, magistrates bench, prisoners dock, recorders bench, and public enclosure, all with square-panelled fronts. The Police Station retains cells with massive iron doors within moulded ashlar surrounds.

The complex is prominently sited and carefully detailed to create an imposing presence within the local townscape, and it retains notable internal features.