The Old Sessions House is the nickname for the former Middlesex Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green, a prominently restored 18th‑century courthouse.22–23 Clerkenwell Green, in the London Borough of Islington, just east of Farringdon.
 
Construction took place around 1780–1782 as the courthouse for the Middlesex Quarter Sessions, replacing the earlier Hicks Hall nearby.It served as Middlesex’s main judicial and administrative centre until county councils for Middlesex and London were created in 1889, after which its governmental role diminished and eventually ended in the early 20th century.
 
After the courts moved out, the building became the headquarters of Avery Weighing Machines from 1931 to 1973, then fell into disrepair before being acquired and restored by a masonic trust in the late 1970s as the London Masonic Centre. Today it is an events and co-working space.
 
Interesting facts...
Lots of nice criminal, plotting and storytelling around this forgotten building
Corrupt magistrate Joseph Merceron, dubbed the “Boss of Bethnal Green,” presided here in the 19th century, using the court to sentence rivals to nearby prisons like Coldbath Fields.
Charles Dickens reported on cases as a young journalist and fictionalized the site in Oliver Twist, where the protagonist is tried after a pickpocketing escapade on the Green itself. Just across the Green, Vladimir Lenin published his pre-revolutionary newspaper from 1902–1903, making Clerkenwell a hub for Russian exiles. He even met Stalin here for the first time!