Building record MDR11301 - Former Moot Hall, Irongate, Derby

In 1610 a new Moot Hall was erected on the east side of Irongate, fronted by a courtyard. It had a five-gabled façade, was of three storeys and attics over a basement, being built of brick with stone dressings, including mullion and transom cross windows, copings and quoins. It became redundant as a borough facility on the commissioning of the 18th century Guildhall, and its courtyard was sold as building plots, allowing it to moulder, mainly forgotten, behind, divided up as workshops, before coming into the hands of the Derbyshire Building Society in the 1930s. They added a flat roof, installed Crittall windows and turned it into an office block. It is now lost and forgotten in a concrete wasteland at the rear of Sir Hugh Casson's 1971 Assembly Rooms. (1) Moot Hall, Derby. This building was the once the old Moot Hall, situated behind No. 7 Irongate (in the old 'Virgin Inn' yard). Moot Halls could be found in most large towns and were an early form of Courts of Law. It served as the Guildhall c.1600-1732. The Borough Assemblies continued there until 1763. The building was then divided into tenements and is now almost impossible to identify due to the construction of the new Assembly Rooms. (2) This building has been mapped from information provided by Joan Darcy, and held in the parish file. The location is approximate as access to the building could not be obtained. (3)