The building was commissioned to replace an earlier shire hall on the site which had been designed by John Hiram Haycock in the neoclassical style and completed in 1785.

[3] The new building, which was designed by Sir Robert Smirke, in the Italianate style and built by Birch and Sons at a cost of £12,000, was completed in March 1837.

[3] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with nine bays facing onto Market Square; the central section, which slightly projected forward, featured a doorway on the ground floor and pedimented windows on the first and second floors.

[6] After the county council moved to the new Shirehall in Abbey Foregate in 1966,[7] the building remained vacant and deteriorating until it was demolished to make way for a new retail and commercial centre known as Princess House in 1971.

[8][9] Works of art in the old Shirehall included a portrait of General Lord Hill by Sir William Beechey and a portrait of Admiral Sir Edward Owen by Richard Evans.