court house

Detached three-bay single-storey courthouse or petty sessions house, dated 1853, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch. Vacant, 1901; 1911. Renovated, ----, to accommodate alternative use. Pitched slate roof on a T-shaped plan centred on pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), clay ridge tiles, and uPVC rainwater goods on timber eaves boards. Repointed coursed rubble limestone walls originally rendered with tooled cut-limestone flush quoins to corners. Pointed-arch central door opening below cut-limestone date stone ("1853") with drag edged tooled cut-limestone surround having chamfered reveals framing replacement timber boarded door. Lancet flanking window openings in bipartite arrangement with drag edged tooled cut-limestone surrounds having chamfered reveals framing replacement one-over-one timber sash windows having lattice glazing bars. Street fronted retaining drag edged tooled cut-limestone "saddleback" plinth to perimeter with cast-iron railings now missing.

A cottage-like courthouse or petty sessions house representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Cong with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form centred on an expressed porch; and the slender profile of the coupled openings underpinning a "medieval" Gothic theme with those openings showing "sparrow pecked" dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original or replicated fabric: however, the removal of the surface finish has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a courthouse or petty sessions house making a picturesque visual statement in a rural village street scene.