3-011-373 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The entrance hall of the new Assize Courts at Manchester, 1864. View of the interior. [The architect,] Mr. A. Waterhouse, of New-street, Spring-gardens...[has] produced what is, beyond all comparison, the finest structure ever raised in England for a similar purpose...the inside is symmetrically and conveniently laid out...Connected with the courts is a magnificent hall, with tessellated pavement to promenade in - the salle des pas perdus... The style of architecture is florid Venetian Gothic...It is covered with a hammer-beam roof of open timber-work, the spaces between the rafters being painted blue and powdered with white stars. Grotesque figures on each side support the gas pendants, which, of their kind, are very light and elegant - by Skidmore, of Coventry. It is lighted at each end by two large stained-glass tracery windows. There is an abundance of light, of ventilation, and of convenience of every kind. The Gothic form of the building seems to have adapted itself to exactly what was wanted within, and the lofty and elegant timber-arched roofs afford that variety of form and of beauty which at once satisfies and gratifies the eye'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.