Description

HERTFORD

TL3212NE FORE STREET
817-1/17/63 (North side)
10/02/50 No.15
Shire Hall

I

Assembly rooms and courthouse (cornmarket 1771-1849). 1767-71,
Architect James Adam, altered 1885, County Surveyor Urban A
Smith, attic added 1902, restored 1988-90, County Architect
John Onslow, Project Architect Russell Moye. Brown stock brick
(north elevation red-brown brick), Flemish bond, with Portland
stone ashlar dressings, columns, entablature and cornice,
hipped Welsh slated roof with lead roll hips.
EXTERIOR: 4 storeys (including 2 mezzanines). Principal
elevation faces east, tripartite composition with projecting
wings and recessed centre, each subdivided into 3 bays. Tall
12 paned sash windows, recessed under rubbed brick flat
arches, with stone sills, alternate vertically with squat 6
paned fixed sashes, with coursed brickwork taken across their
heads. Plat band at main first-floor level. Centre has
restored 'great window' (1988-1990), design based on
contemporary engravings, giant 18:30:18-pane sashes recessed
between an Ionic order in antis, with pedestals to columns and
pilasters linked by blind balustrades each with a moulded top
rail and band, and swagged frieze with paterae. Moulded
cornice with blocking piece runs around building perimeter at
eaves level. Ground floor has triple arched entry (the central
arch slightly higher) with brick antae with stone plinths,
capitals and semicircular arches with moulded surrounds,
recessed modern plate-glass screen and entrance doors and
recessed brick panel and first floor plat band.
North elevation of red-brown brick, and of 9 bays. Tripartite
division, with central projecting segmental bow window; outer
facades blank with first floor having large recessed panels,
corresponding to windows on east elevation, with yellow rubbed
brick flat arches and smaller recesses above. First floor plat
band, ground floor with similar outer panels, flanking central
higher semicircular arched panel; central bow has three 12 and
15 paned sashes on first and ground floors, with blank panels
above the former.
West elevation of 9 bays, with break forward of extreme left
and right bays. First floor with 5 central recessed 12-pane
sash windows beneath rubbed brick arches, 2 similar-sized
blank panels left and right and 9 small blank panels above.
First floor plat band. Ground floor has recessed panel with

rubbed brick arch set within semicircular arched panel, with
stone plinth and impost blocks to first bay left and right.
Centre has 7 bay arcade with stone antae, impost blocks and
semicircular stone arches, with recessed modern plate glass
doors and screens.
South elevation generally as north elevation but brown brick
throughout: above cornice level is a clock erected in 1824,
supplied by John Briant, the Hertford bell founder, supported
on iron girders and brackets, with a slate hung enclosure and
roof with moulded barge boards added 1866.
INTERIOR: the interior was comprehensively refurbished in
1988-90, with restoration of the major Adam interiors, but an
acceptance of the use of a more frankly modern design in
fittings and finishes elsewhere. The ground floor west room,
originally an open arcaded corn exchange is now subdivided for
magistrates' accommodation, with custodial cells on the first
floor mezzanine. The entrance hall has restored apsidal ends,
leading into the central foyer with a spiral stair which rises
to the first floor Round Room. The north and south courts have
been restored to their original dimensions, with Tuscan Doric
columns reinstated as gallery supports in the latter, and
ceiling cornices reinstated to original profiles.
The first-floor Round Room or Rotunda was originally planned
as the Hertford Council Chamber, is toplit by a central
oculus, and has 4 large semicircular headed niches on the
diagonals. The spiral stair from the ground floor has brass
handrails and toughened glass balusters surrounding its well.
The vestibule or ante-room on the east front behind the
restored 'grand window', has restored apsidal ends arch with 2
smaller niches within, Ionic pilasters, and a dentil frieze.
The two courtrooms are of similar proportions: the Family
Court (north room) has a restored cornice with plain frieze,
ovolo band, upper cyma cornice, bold core, and gilded
guilloche and rosette band, the old Council Chamber (south
room) has a similar cornice, and a mid C18 white marble
chimneypiece with heavy carved egg-and-dart surround,
pilasters with rope and buds, consoles with acanthus leaves,
and friezed with carved scrolls, shells and rosettes.
The Assembly Room on the east side has 5 bays, with apsidal
ends, 50 feet by 25 feet; central entrance on west wall.
Tuscan Doric columns in antis form screens to the apses,
moulded bases, fluted necking and egg-and-dart moulding to the
echinus. Ceiling originally vaulted, but due to settlement and
the lack of restraint to the assembly room roof below collar
level, the vault was replaced with a ceiling 4 feet lower,
c1800, with a dentil frieze and cornice, bold cove, and gilded
guilloche band with acanthus leaves.
HISTORICAL NOTE: Shire Hall was built on the site of The

Sessions House, 1627, erected by Charter of Charles I, but
inadequate for its purpose by mid C18. By Act of Parliament of
George III, 1768, a levy was imposed to finance a new Shire
Hall. Advertisements were placed for a design to incorporate 2
courts, a room for the Corporation of Hertford, and both with
and without a County Room; six applicants were shortlisted and
Robert and James Adam were selected, with an initial cost of
»4950, exceeded by »2500 (partly accounted for by the decision
to include the County Room (Assembly Room) after all). James
Adam took charge of the project which was constructed between
April 1769 and April 1771 (the original undertaking had
stipulated Michaelmas 1770). The arcaded western ground floor
was used by the Corn Exchange until 1849. The Assembly Room,
has been identified with Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice',
with Hertford as the fictional 'Merrytown', and the room was
used throughout the century as a concert and theatrical venue.
The Hertford Board of Guardians of the Poor met in the
building from 1835 until 1930, and Hertford Borough Council
held its meetings there for many years, and County Council
quarterly meetings alternated between Shire Hall and St Albans
between 1889 and 1939. The Quarter Sessions and Assizes were
held in the building until 1971, when the Crown Court was
created, and moved to St Albans, but it continues to be used
by the local bench, County Court and Coroner's Court.
The position of the building created an impediment to traffic
flow from the 1920s, and it was suggested that the building
should be demolished: in the early 1930s it was proposed to
alter the building substantially to accommodate the County
Council, but the project was abandoned when the Leahoe site in
Pegs Lane was acquired.
In collaboration with the Home Office, the County Council
restored the building 1988-90, and the project was Commended
by The Civic Trust in 1992.
(Turnor L: History of Hertford: Hertford: 1830-: 290-2;
Victoria History of the Counties of England: Hertfordshire:
London: 1902-1912: 490-1; East Herts Archaeological Society
Newsletter: Shire Hall: Hertford: 1949-1953; Hertfordshire
Countryside: Moodey G: Old buildings in the County Town:
Letchworth: 1946-1973: 46; The Buildings of England: Pevsner
N: Hertfordshire: Harmondsworth: 1977-: 186; Page FM: History
of Hertford: Hertford: 1993-: 111,123-4; Architectural Review:
Bolton AT: 1918-: 68-73; Hertfordshire Countryside: Campbell
D: The Shire Hall: Letchworth: 1970-: 186; Hertfordshire
County Architects: The Restoration of Shire Hall, Hertford:
1990-).

Listing NGR: TL3267212596

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Shire Hall at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17528941

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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