Today we're going to start a short series on the heraldry contained on and in a building in central London,* near the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.
The Middlesex Guildhall was completed in 1913 as a joint home for Middlesex County Council and for the Middlesex Quarter Sessions. It was built as a work of art: “a dainty piece of ornament set among the austere and formal buildings of the neighbourhood”. After the disbanding of the Council in 1965, the Guildhall continued to serve as a court (The Crown Court at the Middlesex Guildhall) and was then refurbished extensively between 2007-2009 to become the home for the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
While some county councils have decorated their palaces with representations of the boroughs within their area, there is none of that here; only Middlesex itself is celebrated. The arms of Middlesex (or rather of the former County Council) appear throughout the Guildhall: Gules three seaxes in pale below a Saxon crown or. The arms were granted in 1910 and Middlesex was evidently proud of them, for they appear just about everywhere you look, inside and outside of the building.
Here are just a few examples from the exterior of the building:
And here, over the main entrance, along with a more modern example of the Royal Arms of the United Kingdom:
So, having made our way along the building and to the main entrance, next time we'll look at some of the representations of the arms of Middlesex inside the building!
* Yes, I know that technically this building is situated in Westminster, Central London. Just like I happen to live in Duncanville, a part of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. It is a distinction that pretty much only the people who actually live here care to make. I tell people I live in Dallas, even though technically speaking, I don't. Here, I'm going to say that the Supreme Court building is located in London, even though technically speaking, it isn't.
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