Catalogue description Sessions House or Shire Hall

The Shire Hall ; It was not till 1752 that a Shire Hall or Sessions House was planned for Bedfordshire. There was no full-time county staff:- the Clerk of the Peace and the Under-Sheriff were both practising attorneys who fitted in sessions and shrievalty with work in their respective private practices. Quarter Sessions met in Bedford at the Swan, or in Luton at the George, or at inns elsewhere in the county. Assizes were held in Herne Chapel. But by 1752 it was beginning to be thought that a permanent building would be preferable, especially if the borough of Bedford would co-operate; for the Guildhall on the crowded St. Paul's Square, which was used for borough sessions and meetings, was small and old. The first plan was to pull down the borough Guildhall and rebuild on its site; and the Town Council on 23 March resolved to give "His Grace the Duke of Bedford and other the subscribers" leave to do this. But the old site among the butchers' shops would not give sufficient room without clearance round it, and clearance would provoke opposition and involve expense. No doubt the Duke would help with the cost, but the borough was nervous of ducal favours. It seemed better to decide on property for sale on the south side of the square, a house and brewhouse which had been the Castle Inn in the time of Simon Beckett (d.1711). While public subscriptions were coming in, the Duke on 23 May advanced the necessary £500 for the whole site, of which a small part was sold off to Thomas Woodward for £90. On 11 June the Duke conveyed it to 18 county and 4 borough justices of the peace, in trust to be used for assizes, for town and county quarter sessions, for Bedford petty sessions, and for such other lawful purposes as the trustees might think fit. Among the trustees was always to be the heir to the Duke of Bedford in possession of Woburn Abbey.; The building erected in 1753 had a Georgian facade, and when the Free School nearby was refaced in 1767 they harmonised well. The architect may have been Thomas Moore, who writes from Woburn Abbey, and who was at this time making alterations to the County Gaol. There was no authority to spend public money on such a building. The Duke subscribed a further 500 guineas and nearly 200 other persons in town and county gave sums varying from 10 shillings to £100. Parry, writing in 1827, describes it as "very plain, and no ornament to the town". Matthiason in 1831 calls it "a neat-looking stone building...however rather heavy in its general proportions." Inside, he says, was "a spacious hall of lofty altitude occupying the whole depth of the building", (it ran north-south and was about 51' x 26') with a portrait of Samuel Whitbread, M.P. "On each side it communicates by doors with the adjoining wings, of which one is used as the civil (20' x 29') and the other the criminal court (20' x 48'). A spacious and handsome room for the use of the grand jury has lately been added"; but the courts, he says, are too confined to allow sufficient public access, and the friends or relatives of the accused are found "weeping and lamenting" in nearby public-houses. He adds that as Sessions House was "the only house of public assembly in the town", it was "a place of general public business and frequently of amusement, being well adapted for assemblies, lectures etc."; Sessions records show instances of this varied use. When it served as a theatre, repairs and cleaning were required; Negus Eston, carpenter, in 1785 had to mend "seats and floors and forms when the players went away", and Thomas Empey cleaned the windows "after the players." [QSM/18, p.35 (Mich.Sess.1785) "Ordered that no stage-players be permitted to act in the Sessions House."] In 1780 it cost 2s. "mending forms and Winscoat after the Election". The worst offenders were the Militia, who seem to have used it for a drill-hall; they had to make way for assizes; 1781 "my Self and man at Sessions House mending winscoat and Tabels when the Malatia went a way for the Asizessis". [QSM/19, p.55 (Mids. Sessions 1793) "It is ordered.... that the Sessions House be not made use of as a Guard Room or place of arms or for the accommodation of any soldiers serving in the army or militia or for players or for the exhibiting of any show or spectacle, and that the Hallkeeper do not upon any account part with the key to any person or give admittance for the above purposes. Ordered that John Symonds, carpenter, the Hallkeeper, and no other person do take up and replace the benches and tables where necessary for any public meeting".] In 1803, the year of the Napoleonic invasion scare, special permission was given to the Bedford Volunteers "to assemble in the Shire Hall during the Winter Evenings for the Purpose of being drilled in the Manual and Platoon Exercise" on account of "the Necessity that every Volunteer should as speedily as possible be made acquainted with the Use of Arms," and the officers were to make good any damage. Bunyan Meeting had permission to worship at Sessions House when the Old Meeting was under repair in 1806. But when Col. Osborn wanted to give a dinner party for his friends in 1818 some justices of the peace wrote to Theed Pearse saying that they "most decidedly protested against its being used for such a purpose."; For about 100 years the Sessions House served both county and borough, and the old Guildhall was pulled down when the Town Improvement Commissioners cleared St. Paul's Square. With the mid-19th century more began to be required. Moreover an act of 1826 had empowered Quarter Sessions to use public money for altering or rebuilding Shire Halls. The attorneys complained in 1828 that the judge kept their door closed, and they could not get in and out of court. A record room and prisoners' room were added in 1844. When Theed Pearse junior, whose office was in the adjoining house, died in 1857, it was obviously desirable to buy it. Some justices began to demand a new building, in particular T.C. Higgins and Henry Littledale, but they succeeded only in getting minor alterations in 1858. It took another 20 years, and then the Luton Board of Guardians deprecated a new building at a time of depression.; It was Mr. Justice Denman in 1877 who set the ball rolling: he complained of "the foetid and unwholesome state of the courts... the accommodation for the bar is not worthy of the county of Bedford." He engaged a room elsewhere to serve as an indictment office, and (through the Under-Sheriff) presented the bill. The first steps were tentative. The County Surveyor, William Watson, brought out plans for improvement. Two justices (Sir John Burgoyne and J. N. Foster) had second thoughts in the following January, for some alterations to local Government were even then anticipated; but the majority, led by c. Magniac and W. B. Higgins (who died later in the year) were not to be restrained. The Town Council passed a resolution deploring the Shire Hall's "inadequate appearance." A new site by the prison was suggested, but found impracticable; but No. 6 St. Paul's Square was secured. A list was drawn up of what was required: courts, justices' meeting-rooms, Clerk of the Peace office, accommodation for the borough, judge's lodgings, and room for the police; and in March 1878 it was decided to approach Alfred Waterhouse of London (among his buildings are the Prudential Offices in Holborn, the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, and Manchester Town Hall). The new accommodation required was to be built at the back of the old premises.; Waterhouse did not like the limitations: "the building would of course lack all architectural appearance towards St. Paul's Square, and the offices could hardly be so convenient... as if they were rebuilt." Still he worked quickly. He took particular trouble with the internal arrangement of the courts, and many comments were made by the legal gentlemen concerned. They were based on his experience at Durham "slightly altered from the Manchester courts." His plans, estimated to cost £17,000, were submitted at Michaelmas Sessions and approved, subject to modifications of details. For tender they were exhibited in a room set apart, with a couple of the special bricks and a piece of red terra cotta - some London builders came down by early train. A Leeds firm, John Wood & Son, succeeded with a tender for £13,485 (the actual cost was £16,622). The new Gothic assize courts rose behind the Georgian building. Now the justices were in full career. At Michaelmas Sessions 1880 they once more presented that the Shire Hall was inadequate. A Committee was appointed to proceed further; and one imagines that Waterhouse was happy at last. By sweeping away the old building in its entirety, and by making the axis of his entrance area east-west instead of north-south, he was able to use the full width of the site for a spacious baronial hall, 60 x 30', with subsidiary rooms opening off it. The judge's lodgings he intended to build on the site of No. 6, St. Paul's Square. The Gothic facade was to be "of red brick, red terra cotta dressings and covered with Broseley tiles or with green Westmorland slates." He added a third storey "which in my opinion is certainly wanted to give the building dignity and interest." The judge's lodgings were sacrificed to economy. But in 1881 the old Sessions House crumbled into dust; the rubble came in useful as foundations, and Waterhouse used some of the wrought Ketton stone in the windows of his new entrance hall. The cost, certified by his usual mediaeval-type certificates, was £7,769. A curious feature is that over the porch appears the borough coat of arms; he asked for the county arms, but there were none.; The furniture and fittings of the entire rebuilding were in keeping. Even the clockcases in the courts, and the coal-scuttles and fire-screens in the committee rooms, and the lamp-posts on the pavement outside were brought into line. "All these things, though little in themselves, go to make up the character of the work as a whole." The old furniture was sold at the Corn Exchange by Henry Pulley for £35. The new furniture cost £1,000.; On Waterhouse's style opinions will differ. Functionally his work, for the assignment he was given, was very good. Unfortunately that assignment was out of date within a decade. The warning voices raised in 1878 had been right. In 1888 the Local Government Act set up County Councils. Existing county buildings were transferred to a Standing Joint Committee of Quarter Sessions and County Council (the borough continued to share the use of the courts). At first the Clerk of the Council engaged such assistants as he required, and it was possible for a few years to accommodate them in a building not meant for them, till a small extension was built in 1899. Gradually, as highways, education and other duties were transferred to or created for the new authority, pressure mounted on the Shire Hall for purposes never dreamed of in 1878. Thus the director of education pleaded in 1906: "Two rooms at least are necessary - a clerks' office and a private office where interviews can be had without the presence of a third (and, as it often happens, a fourth) person;" and the chief constable complained "I have the use of a small cupboard in the lavatory room, and two more rooms in the passage, one of fair size with a sink and water laid on, which is used by the inspector of food and drugs." The education department was housed in No. 6 (bought originally for the unbuilt judge's lodgings). More of the south side of St. Paul's Square was bought up:- No. 5 in 1908; No. 4 in 1918; Nos. 1 - 3 in 1934; the Girls' Modern School in 1939. The Council outgrew the room which had been planned as a grand jury room; and Council Chamber and education offices were built in 1910 (Architects: H. P. Adams and C. Holden), No. 6 being demolished; and a treasurer's department (Architect: S. C. Jury) in 1926.; Again a new Shire Hall was planned to rationalise this agglomeration. A competition was arranged, and the winning design was by O. P. Milne. It was in the style of Stockholm Town Hall. Storms of controversy broke out. The 1939-45 war shelved all such hopes. With peace still more duties were laid on the County Council, which overflowed into High Street, St. Peter's Street, Bromham Road, London Road, Cauldwell Street, St. Mary's Street, the north of St. Paul's Square, Gadsby Street and The Embankment. Now at last a new County Hall is in being.;

Note: There was an earlier proposal to build a new Sessions House on the site of the existing Town Hall; see Corporation minute-books for 23 March 1751/2: ; "It is ordered and agreed that leave be given to His Grace the Duke of Bedford and other the Subscribers for the County Shire Houses, to erect a Shire House, Town Hall & Council Chamber in that place where the Town Hall and Council Chamber belonging to this Corporation now Stand: And the Corporation will be the Purchasers of the Houses, Shops & Stalls upon the ground, as the Plan mentions, provided it may be attain'd at a reasonable purchase." ; A Committee of the whole Council was to treat with the proprietors and lessees of the ground to be purchased.;

Purchases subsequent to Sessions House site: for 7 St Paul's Square, See CCE 2028.

For abortive plans for a new Shire Hall, see: G.P.V. 45. P.S.,27-28. ; 1934-40 ;