Moot Hall
Moot - A. Saxon, Motian, to meet for deliberation, to discuss, from mot, a meeting, whence metan, to meet. Likewise a moot-point, one liable to be debated.
The old Moot Hall "Stands at the south west corner of the Market Place. It is a plain building for the purposes to which it was applied. It consisted of a court-loft, with ante-room for retiring judges, &c., which being separated by partition slide, might be thrown together as necessity required. It is surmounted with a square tower, which contains a clock. The first moot hall, which stood on the site of the present building was erected in 1592. The present erection was made in 1759, and has generally fallen into dilapidation and disuse. It was sold by auction on the 12th April 1859, for 280l (pounds), to Mr Job Bintley, Surveyor, when the Courts of Session were removed to the Whitehall ( now Town Hall). The public clock, projecting from the tower, still remains, and we say, with regard to it, esto perpetua." Cornelius Nicholson, Annals of Kendal (1861).
"Adjoining theses shops (on the east side of Stricklandgate), and at the corner of Mercer's Lane, stands the building which, until the year 1859 was the Moot Hall. It is one of the chief characteristics of an ancient town that it's hall of justice was almost invariably placed in the Market Square; and to many an antiquary, visiting this ancient burgh in recent days, it has appeared as a puzzle why our Town Hall should be so far remote from it's rightful position. It can be, therefore, of no small comfort to our wonted pride to feel that in days gone by our Moot Hall did not transgress against this customary characteristic.
It would seem that the building was erected in the year 1591, but that in 1729 it was almost entirely remodelled, being greatly heightened and adorned by new windows, a time when the old oaken gallery that used to run along Mercer's Lane was removed. Upon the Corporation removing to the White Hall in Highgate the property was sold off by auction on 12th April 1859, when it realised the magnificent sum of £280!
Accustomed as we are to the style of our present mayor's appartments, it is difficult to imagine this old court-loft, approached by twenty-four steps, and only partially lit with the aid of some half-burnt sixes fixed in tin candlesticks against the whitewashed walls. Turning sharp round to the West, at the head of the stair, so as to face the portrait of John Yates hanging above the bench, the careful observer might have distinguished truly a few long windows begrimed with dirt on the right-hand looking in to the lane, and another on the left over the gallery appropriated to the jury. Beside this latter window there was a doorway leading to the retiring room, the which being separated only by a sliding partition, could be thrown in to the main court as necessity required. In front of the bench was a round table for the use of the learned profession and their subordinates, with occasional room for the newspaper reporter. But nothing, I think, can describe the dilapidated condition of the building, so much as the wooden rail pen-like enclosure which was placed in the centre of the room as a necessary precaution to keep the public away from this rotten portion of the floor, and beneath which were no wooden supports." John F Curwen, Kirkbie Kendal (1900)
