History - Sessions House

This is County Hall for Kent and houses the main Kent County Council Offices with Maidstone Prison behind

This space is dominated by the neo-Baroque facade of County Hall, designed by F.W. Ruck and built 1910-1913 with further extensions in 1930’s.  Behind it and glimpsed through the central arch is the original Sessions House, designed by Sir Robert Smirke (architect of the British Museum) and dating from 1926-7.

Behind the Sessions House lies Maidstone Prison.  The original County Prison was situated in the High Street in the 17^th Century, but moved in 1746 to a new building in King Street. By 1806 this was seriously overcrowded, and a committee appointed by the West Kent Justices decided to rebuild on a re-site, and in 1810 the architect Daniel Alexander was appointed – probably because a leading justice was Viscount Marsham whose father had rebuilt Mote Park to Alexander’s designs some ten years earlier. Alexander had also already designed Dartmoor Prison. 

Designs were produced by 1811 in a d typical symmetrical model prison layout, with a central circular keeper’s house and chapel and three small circular turnkey’s houses linked by long straight wings with three short wings on the other sides.

The building of the prison entailed alterations to the street pattern, and this plus the building of the massive perimeter wall was completed by 1812. The rest of the prison buildings, built of brick with ragstone facings and cast iron roof structures, was complete y 1819.  The cost was £200,000 making it one of the most expensive and ambitious prisons of its time.  The finished prison provided 452 cells for prisoners.

The building of the prison ended unfortunately for Alexander, who in May 1819 reported that he had discovered frauds to the value of £2,675 in the building accounts.  He admitted neglect and liability and was censured and dismissed form the job in August 1819.  However, in proceedings taken against him he was acquitted, so at least he did not have the ignominy of being incarcerated in his own prison!