Shire Hall

Large 2-storey civic building in decorative Jacobethan style with Classical detail. Faced with snecked rubble masonry with freestone dressings and quoins to the advanced gabled bays. Slate roofs with red clay ridge tiles, stone copings and kneelers, and tall, rectangular stone stacks.

The main, older, part of the hall is 2-storeyed and has a symmetrically planned front elevation of 5 gabled bays; the central and outer bays are wider and slightly advanced, the central bay housing the main entrance. The later wing to the right is linked to the main building by a 2-storey passage; the front elevation has 2 gabled bays, that to the left wider and slightly advanced. Much of the rear elevation has been obscured by the addition of modern prefabricated office accommodation.

The main entrance is in the central bay of the older part of the building. Approached by 5 stone steps with side walls, the entrance has a moulded, round-headed, keystoned arch on plain pilasters, and 16-panelled double doors under a segmental and radiating fanlight. The entrance bay has similarly detailed surrounds to the narrow lights flanking the doorway and its first floor Venetian window. In the gable apex is a moulded roundel bearing the county arms and the date 1899. The recessed bays have a single window to each floor; the outer bays have 3 windows to the ground floor, the central window wider, and venetian-derived first floor windows with pediments over the central light. Windows throughout are horned sliding sashes with small panes to most of the upper lights, most have lugged architraves with chamfered reveals though 1st floor windows in the recessed intermediate bays are round-arched in moulded architraves.

The added wing to the right has 2 gabled bays; that to the left has tripartite windows with linked, lugged architraves, similarly detailed paired windows to the shorter gabled bay to the right.

The forecourt of the hall has a low rubble wall with moulded cap and spear-pointed railings and gates hung on chamfered ashlar gatepiers with moulded capitals.