Virtual Tour
Outside.
Visitors to the Moot Hall might like to start their visit from across the street. With their back to Marks and Spencer’s, they will notice the immediate impression of a fortified tower house. Original mediaeval brickwork can clearly be seen above the early nineteenth century balcony. The balcony itself was added at the time that the courtroom was created in 1810. Reputedly, this was to accommodate large crowds for the more popular trials who would stand outside and follow proceedings by looking through the windows (created at the same date). The experience must have been rather like a nineteenth century version of a televised courtroom drama!
Ground Floor.
This lofty room, the most mediaeval in feel of all the rooms in the Moot Hall, was used as the town’s police station and prison from 1863 to 1900. The room was divided into several cells and the iron grill in the interior door is witness to its former use. The position of the partitions can be seen in the walls by the existence of replaced brickwork. Outside, at the back, there is a small exercise yard displaying some fine examples of Victorian graffiti. One wonders who A Robinson of Putney was, why he was in Maldon and what he’d done to be incarcerated here.
The most notable architectural feature of the ground floor is the original spiral staircase. It is unusual in having a built-in hand rail (there is only one other, at Tattersal Castle). More interesting is the fact that it spirals the wrong way; clockwise instead of anti-clockwise. Was Robert D’Arcy perhaps left-handed?
The Courtroom.
Dating from 1810, this room is a perfect example of a “Dickensian Courtroom” and is one of only a few which remain in such excellent preservation. It served as both a Magistrate’s Court and a Court of Quarter Sessions. In the former role, it was still in use until 1950. Come and stand in the dock and imagine the thoughts which would have passed through some poor unfortunate’s head as he or she was tried for stealing a loaf of bread or some other misdemeanour.
The Council Chamber.
This fine room, with its beautiful pine panelling, was the centre of municipal life for 400 years. All decisions concerning the town, its people, their lives and their property were taken in this room. The room houses copies of the royal charters given to the borough by various monarchs going all the way back to the Plantagenets.
The Roof.
From the roof, one can enjoy some of the finest views in all England. Exit from the top of the spiral staircase and, looking up the valley towards Ulting, you are almost in a Constable landscape. Look down to the bottom of the town, with the Hythe and the Blackwater estuary beyond, and you could be in a Dutch seventeenth century painting. Just be careful to avoid being caught unawares by the chiming of the town clock, given to the borough by its MP George Courtauld in 1881.