[4] In this context, the justices chose to confirm this arrangement by procuring a new shire hall, in which the assizes would be held, in Bodmin: the site selected had previously been occupied by the medieval Franciscan Friary of St Nicholas.

[1] The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with seven bays facing onto Mount Folly Square; the central section of three bays, which slightly projected forward, featured three round-headed archways on the ground floor and three sash windows on the first floor; a flagpole projected above the central window and there was a pediment above.

[1] The shire hall was the venue for the trial and conviction of the servant, Matthew Weeks, for the murder of his former girlfriend, Charlotte Dymond, on Rough Tor in April 1844.

[5][6] Dymond's story was subsequently immortalised in a poem by the Cornish writer, Charles Causley as well as by a granite obelisk which was paid for by public subscription and erected on the Tor in the mid-19th century.

[7] It was also the venue for the trial and conviction of Dennis Whitty and Russell Pascoe, two of the last people to be executed in the UK, for the murder of a Cornish farmer, William Garfield Rowe, in August 1963.