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 mouldings over the ground floor windows on the left hand side of the main facade of the old Middlesex Guildhall are decorated with figures connected with the River Thames. The old geezer with the trident must be fishing for eels, as then he would fit in with the rest of the trades, but Fehr has clearly taken the opportunity to make him do double duty as Old Father Thames.
From left to right:

Fishing with nets for salmon and trout

Kelping

Spearfishing for porpoise, seal and sturgeon

Woman with her hand on the bow of a boat

Fishing for eels (the trident is dug into the mud and the eels are trapped between the tines)

A fishwife takes fish to market.
As ever, let me know if you think I have got any of these stupidly wrong.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The main entrance of the old Middlesex Guildhall is marked by three friezes by Henry Fehr. Over the arch is Henry III granting a charter to Westminster Abbey - the king stands at the left next to the Abbot, who I like to think is Philip de Lewisham (Abott in 1258) purely because his name is so unlikely. A Benedictine monk (Westminster was a Benedictine house), a cardinal and the Archbishop of Canterbury also appear.
On the left, the scene is the signing of Magna Carta by King John. He is backed by a couple of bishops (no fewer than eight bishops were there, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton), a couple of monks and assorted Barons. Curiously, neither of the blazons on the shields correspond to those of any of the twenty-five barons at the event - perhaps they are members of the royal household.
The frieze on the right shows Lady Jane Grey accepting the crown of England on the death of her cousin, Edward VI in 1553. Her husband, Lord Guilford Dudley, stands behind her, and I think that must be her horrible mother, Lady Frances Brandon, behind the crown. The crowd of men presumably represent the Protestant nobility who pushed her onto the throne, including John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Guilford's dad.
Unfortunately, the conspiritors underestimated the power of Edward's elder sister Mary, who mounted a counter-coup. By the end of the year all had been executed. Lady Jane was still in her teens.
I find it difficult to understand why these two last events were chosen for a building designed to celebrate Middlesex. Runnymede is in Surrey, and Lady Jane Grey had no links with the county at all. It seems to be simply Edwardian romanticisation of the past.
Right in the middle is a small panel depicting the Great Hall at Hampton Court, for some reason, with a tiny figure of Law on each side. To left and right of the central frieze are statues of Prudence and Justice, under ornate canopies.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The main tower of the Supreme Court (formerly Middlesex Guildhall) has an arch of figures by Henry Fehr with Britannia (unusually with a sword rather than a trident) flanked by (from left) Architecture, Literature, Government, Music, Truth, Law and Shipping, a heterogeneous but virtuous group. Above them stands St George.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

The ground floor windows of the Supreme Court have keystone figures of great charm, by Henry Fehr. On the south face they represent the arts, specifically sculpture, painting, classical architecture and gothic architecture.

I particularly like the representation of sculpture, which appears to be a neat reversal of the Pygmalian myth - a female sculptress is admiring a male figure.

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.

Supreme Court, Parliament Square SW1

I'm ashamed to say I nearly missed these charming little chaps, rustling through the thistles above the throng of tourists in Parliament Square. I was looking at the major sculpture on the newly-revealed Supreme Court (formerly Middlesex County Court, formerly Middlesex Guildhall) and had passed over them with a mental shrug of 'floral fillers' when a small girl pointed up and cried to her family "Look - mice!"And so there were. And squirrels, adders, a bird, a salamander and a fox. What beauties.

The Middlesex Guildhall was built in 1912, an astonishingly late date for the Gothic style, but it was felt to be appropriate for the surroundings of the Abbey and Houses of Parliament. The architects were J.G.S. Skipworth.

The detail was designed by E.P. Skipworth and the main sculpture, including massive historical pageants on either side of the main entrance, were by Henry Fehr, but it is unclear if Fehr did all the carving or whether Skipworth designed the minor stuff including the little creatures and a firm of architectural sculptors did the work.

More on this remarkable building later.