Oxford Inscriptions: Old County Hall
COUNTY HALL. A.D. MDCCCXLI.
County Hall (above) was built next door to Oxford prison in New Road in 1840–1 and became known as Old County Hall when the New County Hall opened next door in 1974.
The above inscription simply gives the name of the building and the date of 1841. It was designed in the Norman style by John Plowman, and although it was described by Sir Charles Oman as “quite the most abominable pseudo-Gothic Assize Court in all England”, since 1968 it has been Grade II* listed (1047201).
By 1617 there was on this site a Sessions House or Shire Hall, where the assize was held.
This old building was used for the Oxford Assizes and Crown Court until the new court opened in St Aldate’s in 1986, and since then it has housed the county council chamber and the coroner's court. The rooms and passages below ground housed the County Record Office until it moved to St Luke's Church in Cowley in November 2000 and was renamed the Oxfordshire History Centre.
In 2025 Oxfordshire County Council sold both the old and new County Hall were sold to L & G (Legal & General), who will take possession in the spring of 2027. The developers Reef Origin plan to turn the modern adjacent building known as New County Hall into a hotel while Old County Hall will have a mixture of restaurant, bar, and gallery uses and a roof terrace.
Oxfordshire County Council
In 1889, an elected Oxfordshire County Council was created, and seven months into its existence the city was able to take back control into its own hands with ancient borough status. It maintained this until 1974, when the current two-tier district system was created with the county gaining new powers over Oxford. In 2003, a bid by the city to become a unitary authority was refused, as was a 2016 county proposal for a countywide unitary.
Oxfordshire County Council plans to transfer its operations to Speedwell House in Speedwell Street when it moves out of Old and New County Hall in the spring of 2027, and the Coroner's Court is likely to move to the Oxford Business Park.
It now looks as though three new unitary authorities covering Oxfordshire will come into power in April 2028 and the county council will be abolished.