Court (building)

“ Consequently, the courthouse building, which in other respects was a plain rectangular two-story brick structure, departed from strict utilitarian design with its open arcade on the ground floor front, and its cupola in the center of the roof, serving as a base for the flag pole and housing the bell which was used to announce the convening of court.
The advantages of the two-story building for innovations in design and decoration were even more evident with respect to the interior. ”

“ Moreover, wherever the new court house is built, it is almost certain that it will be followed by some new construction in the immediate locality. The main thing is to obtain freedom from noise after construction is over, and we believe that the work of the courts could be conducted in inside court rooms on this site with more quiet than in outside rooms on any of the other sites that have been suggested. We find that the first wing of the new building could be built as a unit providing sixteen to twenty court rooms with all requisite minor rooms and facilities. ”

“ A pair of massy iron gates, of elaborate workmanship, separate the street from its spacious and airy court-yard, which is formed on either side by a wing of the mansion, itself a building of deep red brick, with a pediment, and pilasters, and copings of stone. A flight of steps leads to the lofty and central doorway; in the middle of the court there is a garden plot, inclosing a fountain, and a fine plane tree. ”

“ Down in the plain, outside the city walls, stood a magnificent building which has been christened by the excavators the Festhaus. It is a fine open court, surrounded on two sides by a colonnade, while on the side opposite to the gate there is a raised platform of solid masonry. The court must have had the aspect of a formal garden, for at regular intervals there are holes in the hard conglomerate of the floor which the excavators conjecture to have been filled with earth and planted with shrubs. ”

“ The provision made for women during a forced attendance at court shows how far we have advanced on one particular line. It is a grand building of the utilitarian type, and erected on such lines that great beauty may be discovered by a casual glance. I want to say a word in praise of the architect who designed the building and supervised its erection to the satisfaction of the Building Committee. ”

“ The Court of Monuments of Art is next, from which the visitor crosses the Central Transept to the west, and explores the Stationery Court and the adjacent departments, then the Birmingham Court, the Sheffield Court, and the Pompeian House, from which he crosses the South Transept, and enters the Natural History Department, having inspected which, he returns up the building on the other side, through the Foreign Glass Manufactures Court, the British Porcelain Manufactures Court, the Ceramic Court, and the Court of Fancy Manufactures. ”

“ It establishes a milestone marking the progress of a people who first planted civilization in this county a century ago. The burning of the old Court House necessitated the building of a new one, and this gave the present council the opportunity to erect a building characteristic of the people, and of the arts and sciences of this particular period. The old court house was emblematic of the pioneers of this county. ”

“ The court-house is near the market square on the principal cross street, and is a handsome plain brick building of two lofty stories, with a cupola rising from the centre of the roof, remarkable for its vane of copper gilt, representing an Indian chief, as large as the life, with a bow in his left hand, and a tomahawk in the act of cutting, in the right. ”

“ This is a noble building; the architecture is in a richer and grander style than any public building I have before seen. The first story is not an open walk, as is usual in buildings of this kind. In the middle, however, is a very broad cross-aisle, and the floor above supported by two rows of pillars. From this aisle is a broad opening to a large hall, toward the west end, which opening is supported by arches and pillars. In this Hall the Courts are held, and, as you pass the aisle, you have a full view of the Court. ”

“ Judge Hughes thanked the County Council for the privilege of opening the new Court House. The county building was a testimonial to the advancement of the county council. He had to acknowledge with thanks the many kind things said of him personally, and of the way he had administered justice in the county. The building is an index, not only of enterprise and good taste, but also of conception for the convenience of those who had to attend the county buildings to do business. ”

“ Comparing the three quarters preceding with three quarters subsequent to the establishment of these Courts, there was a decrease of nearly 10,000 writs issued by the Court of Queen’s Bench alone, or of nearly 12,500 on the year.”
We soon arrived at the County Court. It is a plain, substantial looking building, wholly without pretension, but at the same time not devoid of some little architectural elegance of exterior. We entered, by a gateway far less austere than that of Gray’s Inn, a long, well-lighted passage, on either side of which were offices connected with the Court. ”

“ Some person or persons have entered the Court House Building in the night, without authority and have damaged Said building and have greatly annoyed the citizens living nearby by violently ringing the bell. ”

“ The wooden courts are in process of evolution for outdoor use, and the most satisfactory way of building them is still disputed. One way is to use wooden blocks or squares set up on end, so that the grain of the wood runs up and down. ”

“ While it may take a good engineer to build a clay court suitable for professional playing, a novice can do work that is suitable for all ordinary purposes. As the cost of building one is largely due to the labor item, it may be achieved at one-third the total expense through the coöperation of several members of the family in excavating and hauling material to the site.
To make a good dirt court it will be necessary first to dig off the surface to a depth of at least one foot, and level it roughly with a spirit level. ”

“ They increase the cost of building the court considerably, and it may therefore be a question of abandoning an otherwise ideal site for another which is more level and better drained. A court should never be located in a hollow where the surrounding land slopes from all directions toward it. No amount of artificial drainage could keep such a spot dry. A series of grass terraces leading down to the court need not interfere with its construction if the land slopes away from the court in other directions. ”

“ The houses are generally white, and, rising in terraces one above the other, can be seen from a considerable distance down the river, whose elevated banks lend additional attraction to the view. The principal public building is the court house, used for town, city, and county purposes. ”

“ The enclosing of the{124} Fields with buildings caused much heart-burning among the Benchers and Students of Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1641 the Society presented a petition to Parliament, complaining of the great increase of buildings in their neighbourhood, and ‘the loss of fresh air which the petitioners formerly enjoyed.’ But Parliament turned a deaf ear to the stifling Lawyers, and the building went on unchecked. ”

“ Their names will be forever honored among the founders of the Canadian nation, and after a thousand years men will be proud to count their descent from the pioneers of Elgin.
The public buildings of a community are a fair index of the character of the people. In this view, the completion of the new Court House is an event, and its evolution, as recorded in this volume, is a study of historical and sociological value.
The new building is admirably adapted to the purposes for [Pg 4] which it is intended. It is up-to-date in every particular. ”

“ This building divides the open space into two courts for the recreation of the two classes of prisoners. Each court is adequate, in size for baseball and other games. The ground occupied rises considerably to the north, whereby opportunity is offered to keep the recreation courts fully 12 feet below the first floor level, and for a full basement, which affords ample and well-lighted space for the Commissary Department, tailor shop, shoe shop, and other shops and store-rooms of all kinds. ”

“ There is in this square a very large building, like a Court of Justice, where there are always ten or twelve persons, sitting as judges, and delivering their decisions upon all cases which arise in the markets. There are other persons in the same square who go about continually among the people, observing what is sold, and the measures used in selling, and they have been seen to break some which were false.
This great city contains many mosques, or houses for idols, very beautiful edifices situated in the different precincts of it ”

“ The May 1798 Fairfax County Court Order Book did specify that the courthouse should be forty-by-thirty feet with a twelve-foot portico, the gaol forty-by-twenty, the clerk's office twenty-by-eighteen and covered with slate or tile, a gaoler's house twenty-four-by-eighteen feet, and that stocks, pillory and whipping post also be provided by letting the entire [Pg 59] "... building of the same to the lowest bidder." ”

“ The foundation wall to be 2 feet below the surface, and 15 inches thick, of good stone, laid in mortar—the walls above the ground to be laid on the stone foundation, of brick, fourteen inches thick, and laid in good mortar,—the building to be 36 feet long by 24 feet wide including the walls, two stories high, and of the height of the present building, with a passage of entry 12 feet wide, adjoining the County Court office ”

“ It remains to mention the Northern wing of Lincoln’s Inn, the rectangular Court which lines Chancery Lane on the one side and faces the green sward of the Garden on the other. ‘The Terrace walk,’ says Herbert (p. 301) truly enough, ‘forms an uncommonly fine promenade ... and the gardens themselves, adorned with a number of fine, stately trees, receive a sort of consequence from the grandeur of the adjoining pile.’ This is Stone Building, and is the outcome of a design to rebuild the whole Inn in 1780 in the Palladian style. ”

“ Taking at random the daily Official Cause List for London there will be found on a given day sitting at the Law Courts in the Strand alone, twenty-one judges of the High Court, eight masters, seven Chancery registrars, twelve masters in Chancery, three official referees, two registrars in bankruptcy and one official presiding over "companies winding up"—exactly fifty-four men simultaneously performing judicial duty in one building. ”

“ Nothing remains of the building but the walls and the roof." Moreover, the work of renovation had to be carried out under the double difficulty of shortages of funds and labor that was skilled in cabinetmaking and metalworking. In the end, the restoration of the courthouse was a gradual process in which first one and then another improvement was added. No grand design seems to have been followed or a complete record of accomplishments maintained. Hence, evidence of the courthouse furnishings is seen in such separate notations in the Court Minute Books as follow ”

“ James Wren, and constructed of brick "covered with slate." [130]
During the next forty years, the functions of the clerk grew in both size and importance as he was called upon to serve both the County court and the circuit court. The need for repairs combined with the need for more space required increasing attention to the old building, until, in 1853, it was determined that a new office building for the clerk must be built. Newman Burke, George W. Hunter, Jr. and Alfred Moss were appointed commissioners to oversee the demolition of the old office building and the construction of a new one. ”

“ Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court, surrounded on all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries above, I saw a large fountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing up a lofty column of water, which fell, with a noise as of the fusion of all sweet sounds, into a basin beneath; overflowing which, it ran into a single channel towards the interior of the building. Although the moon was by this time so low in the west, that not a ray of her light fell into the court, over the height of the surrounding buildings; ”

“ If architecture at all, an Oriental fantasia, utterly unreal! the splendour of the Hall of Justice, of the Abencerrages, which follows on either side, with long vistas of many-domed halls opening into other patios, where violets, roses, and orange-trees blaze in the light, entered by portals glowing with brilliant mosaics, a low arch, specially pointed out to him by a noble Moor, more courteous than the rest, in the Hall of Justice, as leading to the place of execution. ”

“ The paint scaled off the panelling, the stairs were all untrim;
The flooring creaked, the windows gaped, the doorposts stood awry,
The wind whipt round the corner with a wild and wailing cry.
In a dingier set of chambers no man need wish to stow,
Than those, old friend, wherein we denned at Ten, Crown Office Row.’
The present Mitre Court Buildings date from 1830. At No. 16, in the old block, Charles Lamb once lived (1800) , preferring ‘the attic story for the air.’ ‘Bring your glass,’ he writes to a friend, ‘and I will show you the Surrey Hills. ”

“ About the Court-house the streets were thronged for a square on either side—horses, carriages, men. The autumn court was an important one. Farmers were not so pressed, there was leisure to look outside of their own fields; men of the town, of distant towns, of farms far and near, of mountain cabins, thronged the steps and the bit of green about the house and the street, back to the small houses and narrow pavements built about it like a court when the town was a village a century and more ago. ”