The site selected by the Lord Chancellor's Department, on the north side of Town Hall Square facing the town hall, had been occupied by the Tower Brewery which had closed in 1968.

[4][5] The new building was designed by the Property Services Agency in the Modernist style, built in red brick at a cost of £4.8 million,[6] and was completed in 1988.

[7] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of seven bays facing onto Town Hall Square but well set back from the road.

A large part of the building projected out to the east behind the Municipal Offices.

[8] Notable cases have included the trial and conviction of Marcel Reitman and Mathieu Poulissen, in June 2010, for heroin smuggling,[9] the trial and conviction of Stephen Williams, in July 2013, for seven counts of rape and eight other sex offences,[10] and the trial and conviction of Colin Smith, in February 2014, for eleven sex offences against a girl.