The Shire Hall is located in the Lace market part of Nottingham. In Anglo-Saxon times Nottingham was known as Snotta-inga-ham (meaning village belonging to Snotta). Archaeologists have already unearthed clues, in the sandstone caves located under the site, linking it with justice and imprisonment from the Saxon period onwards.
The first written record of this site being used as a court is in 1375, however this is not to say that it hadn’t been a court and gaol for centuries prior to this date.
When the prison system was overhauled, in Victorian times, the gaol was closed due to its appalling conditions and was not used as a gaol from 1878; though it remained a courthouse until a new courthouse was erected near the city's canal in 1985.