The Old Shire Hall, high Street

The building was commissioned as a courthouse for the county of Cardiganshire, to replace the inadequate judicial facilities in Cardigan Castle. The site the justices selected, on the west side of the High Street, had been occupied by the Church of the Holy Trinity. The shire hall was designed in the neoclassical style, built in rubble masonry with an ashlar stone frontage and was completed in 1764. The design involved a narrow main frontage facing onto the High Street with long side elevations stretching back behind the main frontage. It featured a two-storey arch formed by two piers with imposts supporting a series of voussoirs and a raised keystone. Above the arch, there was a band which…