England still retains a number of lock-ups, clinks or ‘blind houses’. They were used as staging posts to hold an offender on their route to a magistrate’s court. They were also used to incarcerate those disturbing the peace, vagrants, and drunks. The parish was responsible for the upkeep of the building and for the prisoner when in habitation.[i] They were often built by either the parish or a member of the local gentry. The earliest record of one in England is the 13th C. Most are 18th or early-19th C. They fell out of use from the mid-19th C with the rise of a national police force.[ii] The emerging local police stations had holding cells. This post looks at a few of the lock-ups in Somerset and Wiltshire.

Parish officials, like the watchman or beadle, had the function of overseeing the prisoner in the lock-up. In Bristol these officials were known as ‘Charleys’.[iii] The standalone lock-ups are an interesting and diverse collection. Some are just basic, functional but secure sheds. Others are more in keeping with an idea of civic pride. This latter idea could be represented in shape – e.g., round, square and octagonal – and adorned with ornaments at the pinnacle of the roof such as a finial or a weather vane. The door needed to be substantial and secure. The lighting and ventilation were provided by very small openings. The interior was dark (hence the name blind house) and very basic – usually just a bench and drain.

Where they were placed is also related to their function. Some were placed on the turnpike roads at junctions, which offered an overnight stay for the prisoner on their way to being transported to the town magistrate’s court or the assizes. At Bradford-on-Avon the lock-up is on the town bridge, again a main thoroughfare, but also where many people would see it and it could act as deterrent against transgressions.

The Round House at Castle Cary

The Round House at Castle Cary, dated 1779, is positioned in the centre of a square on Bailey Hill, just up from the main street in the town.  It is built of cut and squared Lias stone. The bee-hive dome roof with ball finial is Doulting stone. It is raised with 4 stone steps leading up and onto a boarded floor.[iv] The oak studded door has large iron hinges. A ventilation opening can be seen in the roof above the doorway.

It wasn’t just adults that could end up in the ‘clink’. The Castle Cary Sunday School Committee of 1785 passed a resolution to lock up children over the age of 7 if they were found truanting from school or breaking the Sabbath.[v]

The Castle Cary Overseers’ Account Book records the commission of the ‘blindhouse’: ‘to erect a House of Confinement for persons guilty of Felonies and other misdemeanours of the Tything of Castle Cary and Ansford until they are brought to justice …’.[vi]

It is claimed to be one of only 4 circular plan lock-ups surviving in the England. It is also rumoured that the roof was the inspiration for the design of the policeman’s helmet. But this may well be whimsey as there is no evidence.[vii]

Nowadays it has a new function – it holds a wedding license.[viii]

The Castle Cary lock-up continued to be used for the confinement of prisoners until the last quarter of the 19th C. New cells had been built under the Market House. This building was designed by F. C. Penrose and erected by the Market House Company in 1855. It replaced a former house of 1616. Trade was increasing in the town due to the arrival of the railway in 1856.[ix]

Market House, Castle Cary.

The Market House stretches back up Bailey’s Hill where the lock-up is situated. The undercroft for the corn market is towards the front of the building. To the rear are several cells. The upper storey had a reading and news room and facilities for entertainments.[x] Must have been strange with people in the cells whilst those up above were enjoying themselves!

Side of Market House, Castle Cary stepping up the hill.

Rear of Market House, Castle Cary.

Kingsbury Episcopi

This lock-up is of an octagonal plan. It is constructed of the local Ham stone. The roof is made up of stone segments forming a conical octagonal dome, surmounted by a ball finial. There are 2 barred squint windows. The doorway surround is chamfered. The Historic England List Entry states it was built in the 18th C.[xi]Leslie Brooke’s book on lock-ups records that it was built between 1820 and 1840.[xii] The lock-up sits as part of the turnpike road on a green. The Langport, Somerton, and Castle Cary Turnpike Trust was established in 1753 and expired in 1879.[xiii]

Shrewton, Wiltshire

Shrewton Village lock-up is on the edge of Salisbury Plain. The lock-up sits on the turnpike road at a junction. It dates from circa 1700. It is not in its original position but close by. After 1945 it was rebuilt after a tank hit it. It is a single-cell, circular plan with a domed roof. The roof and main cell are built of dressed limestone. The roof is surmounted with a ball finial. There is a narrow-planked studded door and 2 small openings for ventilation and light.

 

Sign on the door at Shrewton.

Bradford-on-Avon lock-up, Wiltshire

This lock-up sits on the south end of a bridge that dates from the 13th C. The bridge has had several upgrades but still retains 13th C fabric. The lock-up dates from the 17th C when the bridge was remodelled. and probably replaced a medieval chapel. It sits over a cutwater. A 19th C map refers to it as a ‘Chapel (Magazine)’ – perhaps referring to the chapel origins and maybe at some time being a store for weapons. During its history it may have also served as a toll house for the livestock market.[xiv] Certainly, it was in use as a lock-up in the 18th C. The lock-up is square in plan with 4 small, barred windows. The domed roof rises in offsets and is topped with an elaborate finial arrangement. The ball is not round but angled in shape. The ball is surmounted by a weather vane with a gilt fish, known as the ‘Bradford Gudgeon’, and possibly dates from the 16th C.[xv] Occupants were said to have been under a fish but over the water. John Wesley (1703 to 1791) one spent a night in this lock-up.[xvi]

Sign on the Bridge at Bradford-on-Avon.

Lacock, Wiltshire

The lock-up at Lacock was built on the side of the 14th C tithe barn. It is probably late 18th C. The plan is square. It is built with coursed ashlar walls with a domed ashlar roof, surmounted with a ball finial. To the north are 2 buttresses. The door is iron-studded. Inside is a corner lavatory (quite a luxury for a lock-up) and a modern timber bed. There is a high ventilation hole.[xvii]

Door of Lock-up at Lacock.

Interior of Lock-up at Lacock.

 

Lockups that have disappeared

Many of the lockups have disappeared but they do retain a presence in the records. In Ilminster one stood until 1858 when it was pulled down. A local newspaper of February 1858 records the pulling down and states that ‘Masons have been engaged during the past week in pulling down the Round House – a very ancient building standing nearly in the centre of the town.’[xviii] It was the new police station that rendered it redundant. In 1904 a Rev. J. Street, wrote of it historically and records that ‘In West Street at the point where Strawberry Bank diverges, stood the old Round House. Many a drunken rascal sobered himself in that spot; many an Irish tramp found shelter for the night; and the black hole, or lock-up, had weathered the storms of many an age’.[xix]

Photo of the site where the lock-up likely stood in Ilminster at the top of West Street. Strawberry bank is the row of houses across the road.

 

Lock-ups in other buildings

Lock-ups may not be standalone but integrated into a public building, such as the Market House at Castle Cary. At Launceston in Cornwall the lock up was above the gate passage in the gatehouse of the West Gate. In Salisbury the gaol is under the clock tower in Fisherton Street. Admittedly the gaol was there before the clock tower. The former dates from 1631 and formed part of the County Gaol. The clock tower date from 1892.[xx] At the Guildhall in Exeter, I was once shown the dark, unlit, and unventilated hole that people were sent down into. This is located beneath the mace sergeant’s office, at the front of the building. It dates from the 14th C and was used as a prison. It was referred to as the ‘pytt of the Guyldhall’.[xxi]

Lyme Regis Guildhall – Lock-up door is to the left of the building.

At Lyme Regis the Guildhall of 1887 was rebuilt incorporating earlier 16th and 17th C fittings from the previous building. One of the original features was the entrance to the lock-up. In 1835 the Commissioners of the inquiry into Municipal Corporations suggested that the lock-up had previously been used as a goal also. G. Roberts, writing in the 19th C suggested that the name ‘Cockmoil’ was the name given to the lock-up and adjoining square, and had come about from this house of correction.[xxii]

As police stations began to be built with integrated cells, the lock-up was not longer required.

Notes on Somerset Gaols

Ilchester Gaol and House of Correction was originally sited at Northover, on the north bank of the river Ivel. The prison had been in existence since 1166. In 1615 it was extended. It had a quadrangular plan with ranges of buildings and courtyards. It was closed in March 1843.[xxiii] The gaol in Taunton, Wilton House of Correction, then became the county gaol. This gaol had opened in 1754.[xxiv]

Shepton Mallet prison opened circa 1624 and was finally closed in 2013.[xxv]

 

NOTES

[i] Leslie Brookes, Some West-Country Lock-ups (Castle Cary: Fox Publications, 1985), p. 4.

[ii] ‘The Lock Up’, Historic England List Entry 1022162, (1960), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1022162?section=official-listing> [accessed 29 January 2022}.

[iii] Brookes, p. 3.

[iv] The Round House, Historic England List Entry 1056279, (1962), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1056279?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022].

[v] Brookes, p. 9.

[vi] Brookes, p. 9.

[vii] Brookes, p. 9.

[viii] ‘Historical Somerset prison unlocked for weddings’, BBC News (14 February 2016) < https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-35569592> [accessed 29 January 2022].

[ix] ‘The Market House’, Historic England List Entry 1056254, (1974), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1056279?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022].

[x] ‘The Market House’, Historic England List Entry 1056254.

[xi] ‘Lock Up, Thorney Road’, Historic England List Entry 1057720, (1974), https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1057720?section=official-listing [accessed 29 January 2022].

[xii] Brookes, p. 12.

[xiii] ‘Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary Turnpike Trust’, Turnpike Roads in England & Wales, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Somerset%20-%20Langport%20Somerton%20Castle%20Cary.htm [accessed 28 January 2022].

[xiv] ‘Bradford-on-Avon Lock-up’, Prison History, https://www.prisonhistory.org/lockup/bradford-on-avon-lock-up/ [accessed 29 January 2022].

[xv] ‘The Town Bridge and Chapel, Bradford-on-Avon’, Historic England List Entry 1036011, (1952), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1036011?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022].

[xvi] Brookes, p. 18.

[xvii] ‘The Lock Up’, Historic England List Entry 1022162, (1960).

[xviii] Brookes, p. 12.

[xix] Brookes, p. 12.

[xx] ‘Clock Tower Including Part of Former County Jail’, Historic England List Entry 10260194, (1972), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1260194?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022].

[xxi] ‘The Guildhall – High Street, Exeter Memories, (2014), http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/guildhall.php [accessed 28 January 2022].

[xxii] ‘Lyme Regis Borough Lock Up’, Prison History, < https://www.prisonhistory.org/prison/lyme-regis-borough-lock-up/> [accessed 29 January 2022].

[xxiii] ‘Ilchester Gaol’, Historic England Research Records, < https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=196549&resourceID=19191> [accessed 28 January 2022].

[xxiv] ‘Wilton (Taunton) County Gaol and House of Correction’, Prison History, https://www.prisonhistory.org/prison/wilton-taunton-county-gaol-and-house-of-correction/ [accessed 29 January 2022].

[xxv] ‘History’, Shepton Mallet Prison, https://www.sheptonmalletprison.com/plan-your-day/history/ [accessed 29 January 2022].

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

‘Bradford-on-Avon Lock-up’, Prison History, https://www.prisonhistory.org/lockup/bradford-on-avon-lock-up/[accessed 29 January 2022]

Brookes, Leslie, Some West-Country Lock-ups (Castle Cary: Fox Publications, 1985)

‘Clock Tower Including Part of Former County Jail’, Historic England List Entry 10260194, (1972), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1260194?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘Historical Somerset prison unlocked for weddings’, BBC News (14 February 2016) <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-35569592> [accessed 29 January 2022]

‘History’, Shepton Mallet Prison, https://www.sheptonmalletprison.com/plan-your-day/history/ [accessed 29 January 2022]

‘Ilchester Gaol’, Historic England Research Records, < https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=196549&resourceID=19191> [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘Langport, Somerton and Castle Cary Turnpike Trust’, Turnpike Roads in England & Wales, http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/Somerset%20-%20Langport%20Somerton%20Castle%20Cary.htm [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘Lock Up, Thorney Road’, Historic England List Entry 1057720, (1974), https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1057720?section=official-listing [accessed 29 January 2022]

‘Lyme Regis Borough Lock Up’, Prison History, < https://www.prisonhistory.org/prison/lyme-regis-borough-lock-up/> [accessed 29 January 2022]

Meller, Hugh, Exeter Architecture (Chichester: Phillimore, 1989), pp. 42-44

‘The Guildhall – High Street, Exeter Memories, (2014), http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/em/guildhall.php[accessed 28 January 2022]

‘The Lock Up’, Historic England List Entry 1022162, (1960), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1022162?section=official-listing> [accessed 29 January 2022}

‘The Market House’, Historic England List Entry 1056254, (1974), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1056279?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘The Round House’, Historic England List Entry 1056279, (1962), < https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1056279?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘The Town Bridge and Chapel, Bradford-on-Avon’, Historic England List Entry 1036011, (1952), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1036011?section=official-listing> [accessed 28 January 2022]

‘Wilton (Taunton) County Gaol and House of Correction’, Prison History, https://www.prisonhistory.org/prison/wilton-taunton-county-gaol-and-house-of-correction/ [accessed 29 January 2022]