Editing Middlesex (section)

===County town===
[[File:middlesex.guildhall.london.arp.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|The [[Middlesex Guildhall]] at [[Westminster]], which now houses the [[Supreme Court of the United Kingdom]]]]

Middlesex arguably never, and certainly not since 1789, had a single, established [[county town]]. The [[City of London]] could be regarded as its county town for most purposes<ref name="LSE London"/> and provided different locations for the various, mostly judicial, county purposes. The [[assizes|county assizes]] for Middlesex were held at the [[Old Bailey]] in the City of London.<ref name=rural_old/> Until 1889, the [[High Sheriff of Middlesex]] was chosen by the [[City of London Corporation]]. The [[sessions house]] for the Middlesex Quarter Sessions was [[Hicks Hall]] in [[Clerkenwell]] (just outside the City boundary) from 1612 to 1782, and [[Middlesex Sessions House]] on [[Clerkenwell Green]] from 1782 to 1921. The quarter sessions performed most of the limited administration on a county level prior to the creation of the Middlesex County Council in 1889. 

[[New Brentford]] was first promulgated as the county town in 1789, on the basis that it was where elections of [[knight of the shire|knights of the shire]] (or [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Members of Parliament]]) were held from 1701.<ref name=eb1911>Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 Edition</ref><ref name=ealing_brentford>{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22575&strquery=ealing%20growth |title=Ealing and Brentford: Growth of Brentford |publisher = A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 7 |year=1982 |access-date=20 February 2008}}</ref> Thus a traveller's and historian's London regional summary of 1795 states that (New) Brentford was "considered as the county-town; but there is no town-hall or other public building".<ref name=environ_brentford>{{cite web |url = http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45404&strquery=brentford |title=Brentford |publisher=The Environs of London: volume 2: County of Middlesex |year=1795 |access-date=20 February 2008 }}</ref> Middlesex County Council took over at the Guildhall in [[Westminster]], which became the [[Middlesex Guildhall]]. In the same year, this location was placed into the new [[County of London]], and was thus outside the council's area of jurisdiction.