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The Old Bailey
About The Old Bailey
Better known as the Old Bailey, the Central Criminal Court is located between St. Paul’s Cathedral and Holborn circus in central London. The building we see today, designed by E.W. Mountford, was erected in 1907 ironically on the old site of a medieval prison in Newgate.
The Old Bailey (named after the central building in a castle) is a Crown court, and, as such, has dealt with many of the most high-profile criminal cases in British legal history. Perhaps one of it’s best-known features is the golden statue perched on the building’s pinnacle, with sword in one hand and scales of justice in the other, an archetypal image of the country’s ancient judicial heritage.
Famous barrister and, latterly, author Sir John Mortimer worked within the Old Bailey for many years, and it was to be his experiences there that inspired his fictional lawyer ’Rumpole of the Bailey’, immortalised both in print and on television.
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