28/04/2021
Bit of history on the former Magistrates court in Wakefield we’ve just started converting. The property is being brought back to use as 14 apartments and new office space.
Originally named “Tammy Hall” it was a piece or cloth hall, a specialist market for selling worsted cloth. Paid for by subscription, the hall opened in 1778, providing about 200 stalls for manufacturers of worsted “pieces” to sell their cloth to merchants from England and abroad.
By the 1790s the hall was in decline. The Tammy Hall never achieved the expectations of its founders, who had hoped it would become the centre not only for the town but the wider surrounding area. In 1820 it was sold to Messrs Marriott of Westgate, worsted spinners, who converted into a factory.
In 1865 the premises were rented for the Wakefied Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition and after that it was again leased as a factory. In 1876 Wakefield Corporation bought the building for £3,300 and converted it into the fire station and police offices.
Part of the building was demolished to make way for the town hall and the northernmost part of the building was refurbished to form a new police and fire station. The ground floor housed 20 cells with an underground passage linking the cells in the police station to the cells below the Court Room in the Town Hall.
After use by the fire and police services, the remaining part of the building became the city magistrates court. Established in 1974 before finally closing in 2016
