Main (or Great) Hall
G. E. Street
1874-82
The Law Courts (The Royal Courts of Justice)
Strand, London
Photograph and text Jacqueline Banerjee
[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Related Material in the Great Hall
The Main (or Great) Hall makes an impressive entrance to the Law Courts: it is 238' long, 48' wide and 80' high, with splendid mosaic flooring in Italian marble, and heraldic devices in the tall windows — "the arms of former Lord Chancellors and Lord Keepers of the Great Seal" (Weinreb and Hibbert 461). The hall lies at the very heart of the Law Courts, with the courts and other rooms approached from under its high Gothic arches; there are over a thousand rooms in all, and several miles of passageways. On the right of the hall, near its entrance, is an impressive architectural sculpture created as a memorial to its architect, G. E. Street, who died the year before the building work was completed. It was designed by fellow-architect Sir Arthur Blomfield, with the seated figure of Street sculpted by H. H. Armstead. Around the base is a relief of workmen engaged in the building of this "last great secular building of the Gothic Revival" (Turnor 86). Amongst the other points of interest in the hall are a bust of Queen Victoria by Alfred Gilbert, just visible here at the end of the hall, on the right. The Law Courts were completed by Blomfield together with Street's son Arthur, and opened by the queen on 4 December 1882.
References
"Royal Courts of Justice: Visitors' Guide." Viewed 22 January 2008.
Turnor, Reginald. Nineteenth Century Architecture in Britain. London: Batsford, 1950.
Wenreb, Ben and Christopher Hibbert, eds. The London Encyclopaedia. London: Macmillan, rev. ed. 1992.
Victorian
Web
Archi-
tecture
Gothic
Revival
G. E.
Street
The Law
Courts
Next
Last modified 22 January 2008