Wikipedia:GLAM/Judges' Lodgings/History

Building information
The Judges' Lodgings is an Grade 1 listed historic town house situated in the "Castle Conservation Area" of Lancaster. The majority of the building was constructed around 1625 reusing the timber foundations of an earlier building for Thomas Covell, and became associated with the local Assize Courts.

Covell agreed to pay for "dyett, lodginge and horsemeate" for the judges and their entourage at an assize court in 1635 and continued to be used for the judges until 1824, when an act was passed "for providing a convenient house, and suitable accommodations. for his Majesty's Judges at the Assizes for the County Palatine of Lancaster, and for maintaining and supporting the same."

Originally it was a substantial two-storeyed building of five bays, with close-studded timber frame walls. The lower part of the building was of stone, as can be seen in the surviving early south wall, comprising the cellar and wine-cellar, which has two mullioned and transformed windows which stylistically belong to the early 16th century.

The house in part stands on the site of the "Wery Wall", a 5th century Roman defensive wall which circled the hill now occupied by Lancaster Castle, and which would have been a ready source of building stone in later centuries. However, the large number of timber beams, re-used in the rebuilding of the house, which are thought to come from an even earlier structure on the site, have mouldings which stylistically belong to the very early 15th century. Externally the house looks very much as it did then, the only change being the replacement of almost all of the mullioned and transomed windows by sash windows.

Residents
It was the residence of Thomas Covell (1561-1639), Keeper of the Castle and notorious witch-hunter, who is principally remembered for his prominent role in the trial of the Pendle Witches in 1612.

This certainly gives credibility to the name "Old Hall" by which the Judges' Lodgings was known even in Covell's time.

On his death in 1639 Thomas Covell left the house to his wife Dorothy for her use during the remainder of her life. She died in 1640 after which it passed to their grand-daughter Elizabeth Brockholes.

In 1662 the house is recorded as in the possession of Thomas Cole, a Deputy Lieutenant of the County, whose father Robert had been Clerk to the Duchy of Lancaster Office. The close connection of the Cole family with the Duchy of Lancaster is very relevant to the history of the Judges' Lodgings, especially when it is considered that they already owned and continued to live in a substantial family seat, Beaumont Cote, a few miles north east of Lancaster. This strengthens the conviction that the building has been used in conjunction with Lancaster Assize Courts at least since March 14, 1635, when William ffarington, Sheriff of Lancashire, entered into an agreement with Thomas Covell for him "upon his own cost and chardge p'vyde dyett lodginge and horsemeate for the Judges their followers and servants at the next Assyzes."

In 1675 Thomas Cole substantially altered the house, adding a north wing, a corridor extension behind the front rooms on the ground and first floors, an imposing entrance to the front facade with a raised forecourt, and a walled garden at the rear. A lintel bearing the date 1675 with the initials of Thomas Cole and his wife Jane is set above a blocked up doorway in the north wall of the new wing to commemorate the completion of the work. [When Clare Hartwell visited the house for her revision of Pevsner’s Buildings of North Lancashire she told me that the initials of Thomas Cole and his wife over the door of the north wing did not necessarily mean that the wing had been constructed at that time. In her opinion, both north and south wings were constructed at the same time.] The oak panelling and painted wall cupboard in the parlour of the north wing was added at this time as was the division of the top floor into smaller rooms. [In retrospect, the panelling in the parlour might have substantially been altered at a later period. The painted wall cupboard is almost identical in construction and stylistic features to a drawing in the Gillow records of the 1770s. The drawing also confirms that the Gillow company must have constructed the wall cupboard, if not the entire panelling in the parlour.] It is also thought that the main staircase of the house was moved from the south wing to its present location, although the stairs themselves date from 1826 when further improvements were made to the house. [The underside of the stairs in the main staircase, which can be seen from the cellar steps, might suggest a staircase earlier than 1826 at this spot.]

In October 1822 the county magistrates at the Court of Annual General Session in Preston resolved "that it is expedient to provide better lodgings and accommodations for the Judges of Assize at Lancaster, than they at present have." Although the house was known at the time as the Judges' Lodgings the magistrates applied to Parliament for a special Act to allow them to buy the house from its then owner Thomas Butler Cole, presumably because they would have a freer hand to improve it if they owned it. The building was purchased for the sum of £1,500 in 1826. In that year its new owners fulfilled their promise by remodelling the internal structure of the house, improving the main stairwell, rearranging the wall partitions on the first floor reducing the number of rooms from three to two, thereby providing a larger Dining Room for the Judges and Marshals and a more ample Drawing Room. Originally, the rooms on the first floor must all have been panelled as in the Parlour below. Much of this has now gone; but it still remains in the Dining Room. However, removing a wall partition necessitated remaking the panelling near the door leading to the Butler's Pantry. The old arrangement can still be seen in the retaining of two fireplaces in the Dining Room, one of which is uncomfortably situated near a partition wall immediately over the centrally placed fireplace in the hall below. The lack of alignment of the secondary ceiling beams also indicates where the original partitions were placed. From the arrangement of rooms presently occupied by the museum shop and its stock room, it must have been in 1826 when a Juvenile Court was set up in the building, the shop being the courtroom and the stock room being the Prisoners' Waiting Room.

The building was administered by the County Magistrates from 1826 to 1887, after which their duties were taken over by the newly formed Lancashire County Council which became the new owner of the house. The Circuit Judges continued to stay at the Judges' Lodgings three times a year. Between their visits, the house was looked after by a housekeeper whose family lived on the premises. Additional staff were hired to serve the Judges when in residence. In 1917 these included four kitchen maids, three housemaids and an under-butler. The Judges, two if there was a heavy calendar of court cases, each brought their own cook, butler, clerk and marshal. Their wives would also bring ladies' maids.

When the Crown Courts moved to Preston in 1975, the redundant Judges' Lodgings was taken over by Lancashire County Museum Service. In its early years as a museum, considerable resources were expended on structural work necessary to ensure the survival of the building. Since then, most of the rooms on the ground and first floors have been sensitively restored and furnished with pieces originally supplied to the house in the 18th and 19th centuries by the famous cabinet-making firm of Gillows of Lancaster. The period rooms and their original furnishings very appropriately form the nucleus of what has now become the national collection of Gillow furniture, with magnificent treasures which include the Denton Park library table, 1778, the Knowsley Hall Carlton House desk, and the full-size Norton Hall billiard table, 1821, complete with original marking board, cue stands, cues, and maces. Great care has been taken in setting out the rooms as they would have appeared in the Regency. In this context, one of the rooms, the Junior Judge's Bedroom on the first floor, has been converted to a Gallery of the History of Gillow Furniture which largely accommodates later pieces which, for stylistic reasons, cannot convincingly be integrated into the period rooms of the historic house.

Furniture and paintings have also been lent to the house by the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and other museums. In addition, two munificent bequests - that of George Holt, 1991, and Lionel Hewlett, 1995, given to Lancashire County Museum Service through the National Art Collections Fund - comprising paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, furniture, silver, ceramics and social history items, has transformed the appearance of the first and second floors of the house as a Judges' Lodgings of the Regency period. This choice of date for the furnishing of the house was particularly in keeping as it was then that many of its surviving pieces were commissioned, significant structural changes were made, and the building itself gained its name "Judges' Lodgings."

In addition to the Historic House and Gillow Museum, the Judges' Lodgings has a Museum of Childhood which occupies its second floor. The origin of this was the acquisition by the Museum Service in 1979 of a collection of dolls and accessories, dating from the 17th century to the 1950s and formerly owned by Barry Elder. The Barry Elder Doll Collection, one of the finest of its kind in the United Kingdom, is of national importance. The Museum Service has continued to add to the collection and the Museum of Childhood is now a very significant tourist attraction in Lancashire.