Prisons
+EC1 themes index
38 Clerkenwell was home to a number of prisons. The notorious Fleet Prison was built by the side of the River Fleet in 1197. Other prisons include Clerkenwell Bridewell (1615), Coldbath Fields Prison (1794) and the House of Detention (rebuilt 1845). In 1847 a new prison, The Middlesex House of Detention, was built on the site of two earlier prisons, Bridewell, and the confusingly named ‘New Prison’. It closed in 1890 and was replaced with Hugh Myddleton School in 1892. It is now an apartment building called Kingsway Place, but the original dungeons still remain below. The dungeons and cells provided a safe haven for the schoolchildren and staff during bombing raids in World War 2.
39 The Old Sessions House (or The Middlesex Sessions House, as it was originally known) dominates the western side of Clerkenwell Green. It was built around 1780 and was the location of Charles Dickens’ early employment as a junior writer, reporting on court cases. Subsequently, he wove the location into his novels and this where Oliver Twist was tried after being caught stealing a pocket watch on Clerkenwell Green. It earned a reputation for harsh sentencing. A 78-year-old woman once received seven years for stealing a joint of meat. A 20-year sentence was not unknown for stealing a pair of boots. Stocks were positioned on the nearby green, where drunkards were placed to be ridiculed by the public. In one year alone, 200 convicts were transported to Australia, and scores of prisoners were sent from its dungeon to their deaths before it finally closed as a magistrates’ court in the 1920s.
40 Coldbath Fields Prison at Mount Pleasant, was the very first prison to introduce the treadmill, back in the 1830s. Prisoners were allowed five minutes off for every 10 minutes on, over an eight hour shift. This is the equivalent of climbing 8,000 feet. It’s like climbing Snowdon twice a day but with a less interesting view. It took a few years for the authorities to actually use the treadmill to power the prison itself. Before that, the prisoners were doing it for the sheer fun.
Debtors prisons
prisons – ALSATIA
alsatia.org.uk
prisons – ALSATIA • alsatia.org.uk