Middlesex Sessions House

The building ahead is the Old Sessions House, and its grand appearance was a deliberate choice to project power and judicial authority over Clerkenwell Green. Constructed between seventeen seventy-nine and seventeen eighty-two, it replaced an older, more modest courthouse called Hicks Hall. The architect, Thomas Rogers, designed the structure with imperial grandeur, using expensive Portland stone and imposing Ionic columns to ensure the building dominated the local landscape. For over a century, this was the busiest and largest magistrates court in England, serving as the primary judicial center for the county of Middlesex.