Bargoed Police Court is situated next to the police station on Hanbury Road. The police station was built in 1904, whilst the court was designed by the architect George Kenshole and constructed in 1911.

According to Cadw ‘the court building is in the Beaux-Arts style classicism and has an ashlar gabled front, while the side walls are of coursed rock-faced sandstone with lighter freestone dressings, and the slate roof is on a moulded freestone cornice. The 3-bay front has clasping buttresses with wreaths in sunk panels below the cornice, while the bays are framed by half-round Ionic pilasters supporting an architrave and an entablature inscribed “Police Court”. Central double panelled doors are within an egg and dart surround with bold fluted keystone. The narrower outer bays have blind panels. The pediment has a dentilled cornice and is decorated with a garlanded wreath in relief. The 4-window left side wall has small-pane iron-framed windows in full-height shallow projections with deep architraves incorporating aprons. The R side has a similar window on the L side, to the R of which is a single-storey projection in the angle of the court and cell block, with roof concealed behind a freestone parapet. It has 2 iron-framed windows to the front and a doorway in an architrave to the R side wall.’

The police station is two storeys with an attic. It comprises a ‘comprising symmetrical 3-bay range with a lower gabled bay slightly set back to the left, then the 2-storey cell block, also set back and adjoining the court. It is of coursed rock-faced stone with bigger quoins, lighter freestone dressings, and replaced slate roof on corbelled eaves to the main range, moulded eaves to the cell block, which also has a coped gable to the left. The main range has brick end stacks and the cell block has stone end stacks. In the main range the symmetrical bays comprise replaced canted bay windows with central fielded-panel door under an overlight and in a stone surround. […] The cell block has a single cell window in the lower storey with iron-framed glazing behind iron bars.’

The court house was used as a Magistrates court in 1997, and both the court and the police station are Grade II listed as ‘early twentieth century civic buildings of strong architectural character in a prominent location’

Sources: Cadw listed building database, reference number: 26493; notes by Paul Davis

M. Ryder, RCAHMW, 21 April 2021