PUBLIC BUILDINGS
condition that they paid £400 a year as rent to the funds of the Charity School. The Court House which Mr. Bourchier built stood for sixty years on the site where St. Andrew's Church now stands; it appears not to have been seriously injured during the siege of the town, and, as the Mayor's Court only occupied a part of the building, the remainder was available for various purposes. In 1762 the Court House was greatly enlarged by the addition of verandahs twenty-five feet broad to both floors on the south, an additional saloon with a room at each end, arches opening all around, and a dancing-saloon, "in order that it might be used as an exchange, post-office, quarter-sessions office, public entertainments and assembly-rooms," and the rent, which at this time was two thousand rupees a year, proportionately increased. It continued to increase from time to time, till, in 1778, it rose to eight hundred sicca rupees a month. These were the best days of the old house: the Mayor's Court had been abolished a few years before, and gradually the tide of fashion ebbed away to rival assembly-rooms, the theatre, and other places of entertainment; the floors became unsafe for dancing, and, finally, the "Old Court House" was pulled down in 1792, and only its name remains commemorated in Old Court House
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