Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The Supreme Court judges have sworn themselves in and have started work in the old Middlesex Guildhall, so here is one last curiosity from the building. Round the back is set a gateway from the old House of Correction or Bridewell in Tothill Fields, which was demolished to make way for Westminster Cathedral.
The stone above is inscribed with the date 1655 and states:

"Here are several Sorts of Work
For the Poor of this Parish...
and for such as will Beg and
Live Idle in this City and Liberty
of Westminster."

Bridewells, named after the original in the City of London, were places where the unemployed, unemployable and simply workshy were forced to pick oakum or walk a treadmill in grim, gloomy silence. They must have been unspeakable.
The old gateway was installed here by the GLC in 1969, hence the rather stuck-on appearance.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

Even the back door of the old Middlesex Guildhall was adorned with sculpture. Here, Henry Fehr has created a wonderful trio symbolising the values of the law. Over the door, set in a lavish Gothic-with-Art-Nouveau-touches canopy, is Justice, blindfold to show she is indifferent to wealth, privilege or power. Despite her blindfold, she can obviously see because she is carrying the lamp of truth.
The pair of smaller statues on either side of the doorway seem to represent Reason and Passion. The young lady on the left is calm and thoughtful, firmly grasping the sword of the intellect. The girl on the right is ensnared in vines of passion flowers, her hands held to her throat in a gesture of panic.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

One of the amazing things about the former Middlesex Guildhall is that it is stone faced on all four facades, even though two of them look over narrow Little Sanctuary where most clients would have imposed a bit of economy and gone for brick or encaustic tile. But the minor facades of Middlesex Guildhall even have sculptural ornament, an unbelievable excess.
The keystones of the windows on the north side of the building show the kind of people who thronged medieval Westminster: a monk with a book, a scrivener with a scroll, an armourer with a knight's helmet and a goldsmith displaying a goblet.

  

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The window keystones on the right of the main facade of the old Middlesex Guildhall show Agriculture. Up to Victorian times, Middlesex was covered with small farms and market gardens supplying the city with produce. Cobbett hated it. In Rural Rides he fulminates: "All Middlesex is ugly, notwithstanding the millions upon millions which it is continually sucking up from the rest of the kingdom....the soil is gravel at bottom with a black loam at top near the Thames; further back it is a sort of spewy gravel; and the buildings consist generally of tax-eaters' showy, tea-garden-like boxes and of shabby dwellings of labouring people...dirty, and have every appearance of drinking gin."
From left to right, the first four figures are growers of wheat, hops, fruit and grapes. Then there is a bloke holding an animal that I'm not confident in identifying. It seems to have either trotters or hooves, so it could be a piglet or a lamb. The next figure along, however, is clearly a shepherd with his crook, so I am going with piglet until presented with evidence to the contrary.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The south facade of the Supreme Court has a balcony stretching almost its full width, supported by angels designed by Henry Fehr. Between are the different kinds of foliage and creatures featured in the previous post.
The angels are Fehr's typically lovely but passionless beauties, holding various legal attributes such as the sword of justice, a balance and various scrolls and books. One has a sceptre and orb denoting royal authority.