[1] The building, which was designed George Eaton of Etwall in the classical style as a shire hall, was completed in 1660.

[2] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays at the back of a Cour d'honneur facing onto St Mary's Gate; there were three large round-headed windows and two doorways on the ground floor (one door for the crown judge and one door for the nisi prius judge) and there were Tuscan order columns at the corners.

[4] The courtroom was the setting for the trial of Betty Sorrel in the novel Adam Bede by George Eliot published in 1859.

[8][9] The complex was further expanded by the addition of an early 18th century former public house bearing the coat of arms of George III[10] and known as the "King's Arms and County Hotel":[11] the building, which was converted into a library to a design by George Henry Widdows with seven bays on the west side of the Cour d'honneur, was completed in 1934.

[16] After attending the Royal Maundy Service at Derby Cathedral and distributing the Maundy Money,[17] Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, toured the area and had lunch at the Cathedral Quarter Hotel on 1 April 2010.