Old Courthouse, Redruth
The Old Courthouse, also known as the Old Town Hall, is a historic building in Penryn Street in Redruth, a town in Cornwall, in England. The structure, which was used for judicial purposes before being converted for use as a social club, is a Grade II listed building.
History
The building was commissioned as a courthouse established to enforce debts under the Small Debts Act 1845. The site the court officials selected was on the west side of Penryn Street. It was designed by Robert Blee in the neoclassical style, built in granite and was completed in 1850. It also served as a public events venue and, in April 1853, the Redruth Band performed a concert there. By the 1870s, the building was being let out for monthly meetings of the County Court, which had exclusive jurisdiction over all small claims throughout west Cornwall.In October 1873, a trial took place at Camborne Town Hall, during which the prosecuting solicitor, Richard Holloway, demanded that the miners, James and Joseph Bawden, be sentenced to five months on the treadmill in Bodmin Jail for their part in the Camborne riots. During the trial, the defendants' supporters threatened to blow up the Redruth Courthouse, which as the small debts courthouse was particularly unpopular with the miners, and pursued the prosecutor down the street. The Redruth Courthouse was also used as a Wesleyan reform meeting room at that time.
In 1891, it became the office of the solicitor and archaeologist, Thurstan Collins Peter, who outside his legal activities, carried out excavations at Carn Brea. Peter became clerk of the rural sanitary authority and, after that entity was superseded by Redruth Rural District Council in 1894, he became the clerk of the rural district council with his office in the courthouse.
After the county court was transferred to Camborne in 1977, the building went on to serve as a private members club, originally founded as a gentlemen's club but later expanded to include ladies as well. Monthly meetings of the Redruth and Camborne Branch of the Royal Naval Association continue to be held in the club.