Administrator's Office
Former Court House and Police Station
"The new court house was opened on Tuesday last without any ceremony whatever, except that of trying a man for cattle stealing.
The interior of the building is pleasing enough but we cannot say that a view of it from the streets is suggestive of anything more than a grocer's shop. The cells we did not inspect - we are likely to do that at any time" (Thomas Kennedy Pater, Editor of the North Australian, January 1884).
The Northern Territory's first court house was constructed on this site in 1870 from timber, weatherboard and bark. It was rebuilt in 1883 using locally quarried porcellanite stone and cypress pine, to the design of architect John George Knight, at a cost of 2,500 pounds. The building complex also housed a police station and cell block at the rear and was part of an impressive administrative precinct which extended westwards along the Esplanade.
The buildings survived the Japanese raids in 1942, and were then occupied by the Royal Australian Navy as Naval Headquarters, HMAS Melville, due to their location close to the Port.
The buildings remained the Navy's headquarters until their partial destruction by Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve 1974, when rooves were torn off and many of the walls came down. The remaining walls were braced against further collapse, and the ruins occupied by squatters.
In 1979 it was suggested that the original pre-WWII police station and court house should be rebuilt for use by the Administrator as offices. The Chief Minister, the Honourable Paul Everingham MLA, was receptive to the proposal although Everingham was apparently advised by a senior public servant that "the old stone building was a "heap of rubble" and it would cost way too much".
The Chief Minister was firm that the proposal should proceed and rebuilding commenced in 1981. The ruins were cleared and a large quantity of the original stone was saved and stockpiled on site, so that the buildings could be restored as closely as possible to their original state.
Today the buildings represent the continuing presence of the Crown in the settlement of the Northern Territory - first as the court house and now as the office of the Administrator of the Northern Territory.
The Former Court House and Police Station were declared a heritage place on 20 March 1996.