CONSERVATION PLAN OLD SESSIONS HOUSE 22 CLERKENWELL GREEN LONDON EC1R ONA EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1. The Old Sessions House is one of the finest and most important historic buildings in Clerkenwell. Constructed in the late eighteenth century as the Middlesex Sessions House for the magistrates’ courts, it is a high-status building intended to dominate Clerkenwell Green and its surroundings. In 1860 onwards it was re-modelled and extended to present grander elevations to the newly laid out Farringdon and Clerkenwell Roads. Following the relocation of the magistrates courts in 1920 the premises became the headquarters of Avery Scales, and in the 1970s the building was acquired as a Masonic Lodge who occupied the premises until 2013. The new owners, Ted and Oliver Grebelius are therefore only the fourth proprietors in a 235 year history. 2. This Conservation Plan evaluates the historic and architectural significance of the building and its surviving fabric. It sets out the risks and opportunities in the context of the building’s condition, status and current conservation policy. It makes proposals for the repair and enhancement of the building, including a strategy of phased work. It suggests how improvements can be made to the setting of the building within the surrounding environment of Clerkenwell Green and Farringdon Lane. INTRODUCTION 3. This Conservation Plan for the Old Sessions House, Clerkenwell Green, has been commissioned by Oliver and Ted Grebelius, who acquired the building in late 2013. The Plan aims to inform and direct an appropriate way forward to re-use this important historic building and its immediate environs. 4. In terms of its scope, it seeks to explain the development and alterations over time of the building’s fabric. It evaluates the significance of the building as a designated heritage asset. It sets out to explore opportunities and priorities for repair and restoration, bearing in mind the aspirations of the new owners but in consultation with the Planning Officer and Conservation Officer of the local planning authority, the London Borough of Islington. 5. This document has been prepared by Alec Forshaw, IHBC, MRTPI, appointed as successor to Philip Davies by Oliver and Ted Grebelius as their historic building consultant on this particular project in March 2014. From 1975 until 2007 Alec Forshaw worked for the London Borough of Islington where he was Principal Conservation and Design Officer from 1988 until 2007. 6. Although this document follows the format recommended by the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage, it has not been prepared with any grant application in mind, and therefore contains no financial or feasibility content. UNDERSTANDING THE HERITAGE ASSET A successor to Hicks’ Hall 7. From Tudor times, if not earlier, the Middlesex Magistrates held court in the Castle and Windmill taverns at the bottom end of St John Street, near the Smithfield Bars, just outside the jurisdiction of the City of London. In 1612 a purpose-built Sessions House was erected in the middle of the widest section of road at the expense of Justice Sir Baptist Hicks, and named Hicks’ Hall in his honour. From its small ground-floor court room, local justice was administered. Its greatest claim to fame was the trial in 1660 of twenty-nine of the ‘regicides’, those who had condemned Charles I to death in 1649. Most of these were found guilty, hung, drawn and quartered. 8. By 1770 St John Street had become too busy and noisy for court business, and the premises were cramped, run-down and incapable of expansion. T.H.Shepherd’s beguiling ‘retrospective’ view of Hick’s Hall (Illustration 1), drawn decades after its demolition, is probably more charming than it actually was. The Magistrates agreed that the existing premises were wholly inadequate and that new premises were urgently required. Initially the Magistrates contemplated expanding and rebuilding on their existing site, but the proximity to Smithfield livestock market made this impractical. The site 9. Thomas Rogers, the Middlesex County Surveyor and Architect from 1773 to 1802, was commissioned to draw up alternatives for relocation. Various sites were considered, including Ely Place off Holborn, but in December 1777 a group of buildings forming an island at the west end of Clerkenwell Green were purchased, freehold, for £2,000, a total of £11,000 having been allocated as an overall budget. 10. Clerkenwell Green and its surrounding streets were already built up after the Great Fire, as shown by Ogilvy and Morgan’s detailed map of 1676 (Illustration 2). This clearly shows the island group subsequently acquired. They included various old houses, sheds and the Nag’s Head Tavern. Most suitably it presented a seventy foot frontage to the Green. 11. It seems likely that a good reason for choosing the Clerkenwell Green site was its proximity to the existing penal establishments in Clerkenwell. A prison known as the Clerkenwell Bridewell had been built in 1615 just north of St James’s churchyard as an overflow to the London Bridewell south of Fleet Street. By 1685 a second new prison had been built next to the Clerkenwell Bridewell to relieve chronic overcrowding in Newgate Gaol. Its purpose was to hold those charged or awaiting trial, hence its name, the House of Detention. Soon after, Clerkenwell Bridewell moved to a new larger site further north at Coldbath Fields, and was renamed the Clerkenwell House of Correction. It was notorious for its gigantic human treadmill. The site is known today, somewhat ironically, as Mount Pleasant. 12. In 1774 the House of Detention was greatly enlarged, included new underground cells, to the designs of Thomas Rogers. From here it was just a few hundred metres to Clerkenwell Green. Pink’s Map of Clerkenwell (Illustrations 3 and 4) and Richard Horwood’s detailed map (Illustration 5) show all three institutions in close and convenient proximity. Original 1779 design 13. Rogers’ initial architectural proposals for the new court house were rejected by the magistrates, who wanted an architectural competition. However, having vetted the eleven entries, they chose Rogers, but then proceeded to meddle with the details and specification. One of the rejected entrants to the competition, the disgruntled architect John Carter, claimed that Rogers had actually stolen his ideas. 14. Externally Thomas Rogers concentrated his architectural endeavour on the east frontage, facing the Green. The magistrates had opted for the most expensive materials for the façade – solid Portland stone with Doric columns. The remainder was to be brick with stone dressing for the windows. The Palladian style was unquestionably the fashion of the time – a completely symmetric composition of central portico and pediment above five bays of windows, and a rusticated ground floor. At the request of the Duke of Northumberland embellishments were added, notably five panels of symbolic sculpture in the style of Adam featuring reliefs of ‘Mercy’ and ‘Justice’ flanking a profile of George III. The eminent Joseph Nollekens was hired for £100 to make the sculptures, using Portland stone, and the Middlesex County armorial scimitars carved in the pediment. It appears that Nollekens entrusted the job to John Baptiste Locatelli and his apprentice, John Rossi. At much the same time the Duke insisted that the front elevation columns were changed from Doric to Ionic. 15. Construction commenced in the summer of 1779 but work was delayed by severe winter weather and the Gordon Riots of 1780. The building was not completed for occupation until July 1782. The completed main facade was depicted in 1799 as an ‘exemplar’ (Illustration 6) in George Richardson’s New Vitruvius Britannicus, published in 1802. Illustrations 7 and 8 show the Sessions House in its context in Clerkenwell Green at the end of the eighteenth century. Thomas Hornor’s view of 1813 shows the Session House in an even wider panorama (Illustration 9). Pinks’ engraving (Illustration 10) appears to be later, probably about 1840 judging from the dress of those in the street. Writing in 1828, Thomas Cromwell described the façade as “an elegant design. The sides and rear, being of brick, make but a plain appearance, though the former have each a projecting centre and pediment”. 16. Internally the plan form had three principal spaces. From the main elevated entrance on Clerkenwell Green the vestibule opened into a grand central hall (see plan in Illustration 11), rising the full height of the building and surmounted by a coffered dome in the style of the Pantheon. This magnificent space, 34 feet square, was intended for general public access – prosecutors, witnesses, prisoners’ friends and family, the press - and was surrounded on three sides by open corridors providing circulation to other parts of the building. A double-flight staircase at the west end lead to the first floor court room (see Illustration 12). Originally the wall between the court room and the hall was also open, divided only by two giant columns, such permeability being a requirement at the time of retaining the ancient tradition of ‘open court’. This did not last long. The magistrates complain of noise and unruly behaviour from the hall and by 1783 Rogers had installed a transparent barrier in the form of a glass and cast-iron screen, with sashes for ventilation (see Illustration 13). A peculiar feature of the courtroom, which endured, was the long semi- circular magistrates’ bench running around and above the floor of the court, with a spectators’ gallery above. The impression on the visitor was of entering a sunken well (see Illustration 14). 17. Once sentenced, convicted prisoners were taken down to cells in the basement (hence the origin of the expression ‘being sent down’) before being taken to the appropriate penal institution. There have long been rumours of tunnels connecting the Sessions House to the basement cells of the Clerkenwell House of Detention, but no evidence has ever been found, at either end, and it seems likely, however compelling, to be an urban myth.