Snaresbrook Court

Snaresbrook Crown Court in Redbridge, London, was designed by George Gilbert Scott and William Bonython Moffatt, both prolific designers of workhouses, hospitals and churches. Sure enough, before its transition to Crown Court in 1971, it had served as an orphanage and then a school. It seems to be that its final incarnation is a poetic picture of what happens when workhouses for the poor, schools for your young, hospitals for the sick and orphanages for the helpless all go wrong or do not exist. Those who would have benefited from their various ministrations turn to crime, and their victims seek justice and restitution. By caring for others, and setting them good examples, we might curb fallen creatures' baser instincts.

Yet all our efforts ultimately fail. We might make people more moral, more polite, more cultivated, more charming, but they still have fallen, corrupted natures. We need forgiveness, grace and the Holy Spirit’s baptism. Those things you will seldom find in one of His Majesty’s courthouses, even a pretty one, like Snaresbrook. 

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