Brief History
Trowbridge became the centre of the county court district in 1846. At this time the town had nowhere appropriate to hold County Court and Petty Sessions.
Court Hall was built in 1853 as a County Court House and Mechanics’ Institute. For about 20 years it was used by the Mechanics’ Institute and the County Court as well as for a wide range of social activities, such as concerts and plays etc.
In 1874 it was leased to W.H. Tucker & Company who used it as a cloth warehouse until 1939. Throughout WW2 it was used for a variety of wartime purposes, and in 1946 was opened as a café and restaurant known as the Court Hall Café.
In 1959 it was bought by H.J Knee Ltd, who converted it to a Public House/restaurant, renaming it ‘The Woolpack’. It remained a licensed premises with various occupiers/owners for the following 30 years, predominantly as a Berni Inn, but by the mid 1990’s it was closed and sold to an engineering firm from Hemel Hempstead. It then lay empty and neglected until 2002, when brothers Rob and Jon Giles totally restored it and set up a branch of their retail chain Mastershoe.
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