Description

TQ 3382 OLD STREET

735/35/10072 Court House and Police Station

II

Police court and station. 1903-8 by John Dixon Butler. Edwardian Baroque style. Red brick with Portland stone dressings and the third floor and ground floor are stone fronted. The base is constructed of worked granite blocks. Four storeys and nine window bays wide. Symmetrical composition with a curved single storey height wall at the west end and gate piers to the police station yard at the east end. The central bay is recessed, stone-fronted and contains the entrance door and porch. The central entrance bay has a triangular pediment with the horizontal base recessed, which encloses a stone carved Royal coat-of-arms. Below this is a Venetian window with rusticated columns and balustrade, above a curved porch with two Roman Ionic columns. The stone-fronted attic storey which runs across the top of the building is pierced by circular windows. Below this is a wide stone bracket eaves cornice. Windows to first and second floors on the main front are double sashes, with pedimented heads to first floor. End pilasters. Ground floor has 6 round-headed openings and two three-light canted bays adjoining doorcase.

INTERIOR: Spacious waiting hall with leaded and glazed windows depicting letters standing for Edward VII, by Morris and Co. Coloured mosaic floor by Diespeker and Co, with MP (Metropolitan Police) letters. Fine double-flight staircase leadeing to a smaller courtroom on the first floor. The original light fittings and Renaissance-style niches on the landing wall survive. The hall is lit by a coloured glazed dome. The main courtroom is situated on the ground floor. Both courtrooms are panelled, the main one has a curved dais wall, and an inbuilt bookcase. Other staircases are plain with the chunky square newels characteristic of stations by Dixon Butler.

One of the finest Edwardian civic buildings in London, accomodating courtrooms, station, living quarters and cell blocks (to the rear) all in one building.

Listing NGR: TQ3331082693

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27086068

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.

Recommended Books

• 
  The green guide for historic buildings: how to improve the environmental performance of listed and historic buildings
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects, Supplement 2014
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Suffolk: West: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)