Shire Hall including Branch Library and Museum

Cadw's description

Location

Wide neo-classical public building set into slope.

History

1826-29. By Edward Haycock of Shrewsbury. (Cost £5,570). Replacement building for the Old Shire Hall (formerly on corner of High Street) and provided with court room, judge's lodgings, administrative offices, etc.

Court room first used on 24th August 1829 and closed for assizes in 1970.

Exterior

2 storey and basement 9 bay composition with tetrastyle Tuscan frontispiece flanked by ground floor loggias (alterations to original scheme). Stucco on stone work, rubble to rear, slate roofs, projecting eaves cornice linked to pediment, blind panels over tall double hung sash windows in centre bays. 3 bay wings set back with Tuscan columns and plain entablatures to loggias, original ironwork railings and doorways in return angles of forecourts. Twin hipped rear wings.

Interior

Simple interiors with restrained classical detailing; dog-leg staircase with plain handrail, court room with deep coved ceilling and some decorative plaster work, 6-panel doors in panelled reveals etc. Much of the court room furniture is thought to be later in date. Vaulted cells (now partly occupied by museum) survive from the old goal on the site.

Reason for designation

Group value.