Crown Courts, Civic Centre.

Newport Civic Centre was commissioned by Newport Corporation in 1936 for a design won by T Cecil Howitt of Nottingham with F E Wolley as job architect. The shell of the building was largely completed by 1939.

The crown courts (courts 1 & 2) occupy part of the west wing of Newport Civic Centre building. There is art-deco detail decoration to staircase hand-rail, lights and to doorways and fireplace (Judges room). The steel frame windows have horizontal rectangular glazing with engraved intersecting line work.

The court-rooms are entered via a first-floor foyer known as the Assize-hall. This hall is reached from a grand staircase, which is lit by a 2-storey, glazed, recessed-arch window with external ground-floor double-door entrance.

The two courts are identical and separated by a passageway (with additional access to jury and judge's rooms) leading from the assize-hall. The courtrooms are set out along traditional lines of boxed and segregated seating at various levels relative to their importance. The defendant is in a central boxed and glazed area, containing stairs to cells below. A public viewing gallery runs the width of the room over the entrance lobby. The walls to dado level and vertical box partitions are of veneered walnut with beech writing surfaces to desks. Intersecting plastered beams form a paneled ceiling. The gallery is reached by a pair of separate stairs to sides of main stair starting inside the main entry.

Visited, G A Ward & I N Wright, 20/03/2002.

Part of the Newport Civic Centre ( NPRN 31985).