Court House, Market Square, Antrim, BT41 4AW

Antrim Court House, Market Square

This is the oldest surviving courthouse in Northern Ireland and one of the earliest public buildings of any kind in the country. Built in 1726 by the Grand Jury, the architect is unidentified. It is a handsome, well-proportioned two-storey building in an Italianate classical style, rectangular in plan, with arcaded ground floors on three sides and an ornamented main entrance on the fourth. It retains its essential original architectural features both inside and outside, despite later additions and insertions, some of which currently detract from its appearance. The building is of outstanding architectural and historic interest and stands as an important local landmark at the centre of Antrim's main market square.

EXTERIOR

The building is finished in smooth cement render, lined and blocked to imitate stonework, and painted throughout. It has rusticated painted sandstone quoins at the corners, a projecting plinth, a painted sandstone platband at first-floor level, and a painted sandstone dentil cornice with a plain rendered frieze above. The roof is hipped, covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses, at a low pitch, with widely projecting eaves oversailing on shaped timber brackets and a moulded cast iron gutter. The main ridge is surmounted by an octagonal lantern, added in 1815 at the expense of Lord Ferrard. The lantern is timber-framed and lead-clad (subsequently overpainted), with a rectangular six-pane window in most of its faces and timber louvres in the north and south faces; the surrounds are lugged, and the lantern is topped by an ogee cupola roof dressed in lead, with a ball finial and spike.

West elevation (main entrance front): Three bays wide, this is the shorter side of the building and the principal facade. The central entrance is deeply recessed within a Doric pilastered opening, with a segmental pediment over a triglyph frieze and a moulded keystone flanked by highly modelled swags. The entrance is currently filled with a modern sliding expandable metal grille, with a metal-mesh fanlight above. The recessed porch is approached by a flight of granite steps and contains a pair of modern rectangular timber panelled doors, which appear to be a later insertion. The exterior approach consists of a double flight of stone steps running between the building face and a stuccoed wall, which has low square piers at the foot of each flight and angled coping rising to taller piers at the top. A cast iron lamp standard surmounts the central bay of this wall, below which the front face contains a recessed rectangular panel. The flanking windows are small timber sliding sashes, eight panes over eight, without horns, set in moulded surrounds with moulded cills; they are currently boarded up. The date 1726 is incised on a quoin at the right-hand extremity. There is one painted brick chimney rising through the roof in line with the wall plane, with a concrete coping and four stub pots.

North elevation: Nine bays wide, with the two bays at each end slightly projecting and the ground-floor centre block recessed, containing an arcade of five semi-circular chamfered arches. Each arch has a projecting semi-circular arched drip moulding and a keystone; the arcade was originally open but has since been closed in. The arch at the right-hand end is filled flush with the piers, except for a narrow semi-circular headed doorway containing a rectangular timber panelled door with a plain arched fanlight and a modern metal grille affixed; it retains its original metal doorknob. The remaining arches contain large rectangular timber glazed windows, with the fanlight of each now covered by a plain panel. The first-floor windows throughout are large rectangular timber sliding sashes, nine panes over six, in moulded surrounds with moulded cills, currently boarded up. The ground floor of each projecting end bay contains a window: the left-hand one is a small rectangular four-pane timber window with a projecting cill and plain reveals; the right-hand one is a larger rectangular timber sliding sash, two panes over two, with horns, with a projecting cill and plain reveals. The walling matches the west front, with rusticated quoins to the extremities of the projecting end bays, except that the ground-floor arcade piers appear to be of ashlar sandstone. There is a later painted brick chimney at the left-hand end with a concrete cornice and one stub pot, and moulded cast iron gutters with a PVC downpipe in each angle between the recessed block and the end wings.

East elevation: Three bays, with a triple arcade to the ground floor in a central recessed section, flanked each side by a narrow slightly projecting end bay. Roof and walling match the north elevation, with rusticated quoins to the extremities of the projecting end bays. The first-floor windows are similar to those on the north elevation, currently boarded up. The ground-floor arches are similar in form to those on the north elevation. The two arches to the left are blocked up within deep smooth cement-rendered recesses, each containing a narrow horizontal modern slit window, with two recessed steps to each archway. The arch to the right-hand end contains a deeply recessed doorway with a later rectangular timber panelled door surmounted by a radial fanlight, the front of the recess closed by metal grilles, with three shallow recessed steps within the archway.

South elevation: Similar in composition to the north elevation, with the following differences. The ground floor of the projecting end bay to the right is blind. The ground floor of the projecting end bay to the left contains a rectangular timber sliding sash window, six panes over six, with horns, a plain projecting cill, and a grille affixed. The infilling of the five ground-floor arches differs from the north side: the first arch from the left is filled flush with the piers and contains a rectangular sash window matching the one to its left, with a grille affixed; the second arch contains a recessed vertically tongued-and-grooved sheeted panel; the third contains a deeply recessed doorway with a rectangular flush door and a plain rectangular fanlight, set in a tongued-and-grooved sheeted panel; the fourth and fifth arches contain recessed tongued-and-grooved sheeted panels each with a rectangular timber sliding sash window, six panes over six, with horns, and grilles affixed. The second, fourth and fifth arched openings have a recessed step surmounted by a chamfered step or cill; the third has two recessed plain steps. There are two PVC downpipes in the angles of the recessed block and end bays, and a cast iron soil pipe.

INTERIOR

The ground floor retains a central colonnade of six large unfluted Doric stone columns. There is a small vaulted compartment beneath the main entrance steps. The original prisoners' exercise area is enclosed by a large iron grille. The roof structure is an impressive queen post timber roof. The building also contains early to mid-19th century timber staircases of domestic scale, court room benches, and an inner porch, some of which were probably designed by Charles Lanyon, who served as County Surveyor at the time. These 19th century elements illustrate the historic development of the building during that period.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The building was constructed in 1726 by the Grand Jury to serve as both a courthouse and a market house. By the 1830s, when the Ordnance Survey Memoirs were compiled, the ground storey was described as "divided into a market place or weigh-house and a bridewell or temporary prison." The market area was open to the street through five arches on each of the long sides and three to the east, secured by iron gates. At the western end was a temporary bridewell for "confining drunkards, rioters and prisoners under trial at the quarter sessions," consisting of two cells each measuring sixteen by eleven feet and nine feet high, fitted with two beds apiece. Between the cells and the weigh-house was a corridor seven feet wide enclosed by a dwarf wall with iron railings, described as serving "to admit air and light to the bridewell." The upper storey was fitted up as a courthouse, described as "a spacious, airy and well-lit room" with five large windows on each side and appropriately fitted with jury and other benches, a council table, a dock, and similar requisites. Behind the magisterial bench at the eastern end was a retiring room, and at the western end, over the keeper's apartments, was a jury room. The keeper's apartments consisted of two rooms, one on either side of the courthouse doorway, immediately beneath the jury room and above the bridewell. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs summarised the building as "an ornament to the town although the inhabitants do not seem to think so," adding that it was "but little use as a market house."

In 1845 the Parliamentary Gazetteer described the bridewell portion as "a wretched little cluster of filthy barbarous cells," noting that "an iron railing encloses it from the thoroughfare; a narrow space between this and the cell doors is an apology for an airing-yard, and serves for both males and females; the cell for male prisoners is both day-room and night-room, and has two deal bedsteads, the one over the other; a small cell for drunkards adjoins, and holds fast for 48 hours each convicted drunkard who cannot pay the adjudged fine; and the cell for females, situated at the other end, corresponds in every respect with the general character of the establishment." The use of part of the ground storey as a temporary bridewell continued until 1856, when a new bridewell and police barracks was built on the south side of Market Square. A tradition holds that an underground passage was built between the new bridewell and the courthouse, but this has not been verified on site; it is considered likely that references to such a passage have been confused with the County Antrim courthouse in Belfast, and that no such passage ever existed here.

In October 1823 the building was visited by the English architect Charles Cockerell, who sketched it with notes in his diary. He referred to it as "the town House at Antrim, in the Florentine style," and observed "an excellent character in it particularly the manner of the roof and the cornice under which it has many advantages — the roof has a good pitch, but it must be confessed that the dripping of the eaves is excessively inconvenient — a flight of steps at the other end is rendered almost impassable by the wet." His sketch confirms that at that date there was no window in the ground floor of the end block at the west end on the south side, there being a prison cell at that corner.

In 1798 the building was the focus of the Battle of Antrim, connected with the Irish Rebellion of that year. A meeting of local magistrates was to have taken place in the market house for the purpose of establishing martial law. Rebels learned of the intended meeting and attacked the town in an attempt to take the magistrates hostage. Confusion disrupted the rebel plans; they suffered heavy casualties and their local rebellion was suppressed, but not before Lord O'Neill of Shane's Castle, Randalstown, who had come to attend the meeting as governor of the county, was attacked near the market house. Having dismounted from his horse he attempted to run up the steps outside but was knocked down and piked to death on the north side of the building. Tradition records that in the ensuing days a large number of rebel corpses were piled within the market house before being buried outside the town.

The building was repaired in 1821, 1841, and 1846, and was refitted internally between the 1970s and 1980s. It ceased to function as a courthouse around 1993, its functions having been taken over by a new courthouse elsewhere in the town.

SETTING

The building stands at the centre of the market square, surrounded by modern landscaped areas of paving and cobbles with some young trees. Roads and vehicular access pass around three sides. The building stands within the area of an ancient monument (SMR no. ANT163) and within a conservation area.