|
The Assize Courts
 When a competition was announced in 1858
for the construction of a new Assize Court building, to be erected on
Great Ducie Street, the council received 107 submissions. Among the
architects submitting drawings were Thomas Worthington, who designed
Nicholl's Hospital on Hyde Road and the Albert Menorial in Albert
Square, and a 29 year old Alfred Waterhouse. Waterhouse won the
competition, his design being preferred over Worthington's, as it would
be
some years later when the two competed for the design of the new Town
Hall. John J. Parkinson-Bailey in "Manchester - An Architectural
History" points out that earlier in 1895 Waterhouse had visited
Antwerp and Bruges and "The high pitched roofs of the Assize Courts
(and later the Town Hall and Owen's College) certainly reflect this
interest."
The Courts were constructed on the site
of the former Strangeway's Hall.
 The image above comes from the Casson map
of Manchester & Salford and is shown here with the permission of
Chetham's Library.
Building began in 1859 and the
first hearings took place in the building in July of 1864. Even
before the court house was finished Waterhouse was commissioned to
design the adjoining Strangeway's Prison.
  The image above
is by George P. Landow and shown here with the permission of Victorian
Web
 The map above, from 1935, shows the
Assize Courts facing onto Great Ducie Street with the prison behind
it. In the aerial photograph below (shown with the generous
permission of English Heritage), taken on the 13th of May, 1949, the
prison can be seen with the star shaped ranges radiating from a central
tower. Just in front, indicated by the red line, is the ruin of
the Assize Courts. The building was hit in the blitzes of 1940
and 1941 destroying all but the judge's lodging and the Ducie Street
facade. What you see below is the ruin waiting for demolition.
 If you visit the site of the former
Assize Court today you will find this new building attached to the
front of the Victorian Strangeway's Prison.
 |