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Middlewich House of Correction
Local historian Rob Keep tells us more about the Middlewich House of Correction in Cheshire. As shown in a local history plaque, on Queen Street, the original House of Correction was built in the 1630s, on the site of the…
Lock-ups in Tring, Hertfordshire
Opened in January 1914, Tring Police Station is the oldest station still in use in Hertfordshire. Shelley Savage, from the Tring & District Local History & Museum Society, gives us a tour ‘behind the blue door’, and tells us the…
The Castle Cary Round House
Local historian, Chris Hicks, tells us about the various uses of the Castle Cary Round House over its lifetime, from holding pen for truant children to licensed wedding venue… Primarily intended for the temporary incarceration of drunkards and other miscreants,…
Restoring the Old Police Station in Chipping Campden
In this blog, Carol Jackson of the Chipping Campden History Society explains how the restoration of the Old Police Station was made possible through the establishment of a community venture scheme: The Peelers Trust. The Old Police Station in Chipping…
The Lock-up in Ashwell, Hertfordshire
by David Short, local historian. In May 1994, Anglia News broadcast a piece in which I was seen to lock up a group of children in the Lock-up and walk away apparently without a care in the world. A few…
The history of Bridewell
We’re delighted to share the history of Bridewell Palace from author David Breakspear. A House of Correction in 16th century England did exactly what it said on the tin. They were established to correct what was considered as disorderly…
Ripon House of Correction
By Leah Mellors, Curator, Ripon Museum Trust Ripon Prison & Police Museum tells the story of the police and prisons services in Yorkshire and the Humber since the early 1800s. The museum is housed in a complex of buildings…
Chippenham’s Medieval Hall
By Melissa Barnett, curator, Yelde Hall The Yelde Hall, a rare surviving example of a medieval civic or town hall, is Chippenham’s most iconic building. One of very few remaining timber framed buildings, it is also one of the town’s…
Berkhamsted Lock-Up
by Elaine Saunders @earlypolicing The establishment of Berkhamsted’s house of correction in the mid eighteenth century marked the beginning of over 200 years of imprisonment and policing on the same site. Houses of correction, or bridewells, were established nationwide in…
Lock-ups in Cranbrook
By Rod Dann, Curator, Cranbrook Museum The first pictorial indication of penal correction can clearly be seen in the drawing of Cranbrook’s first market building where the stocks are evident. The first lock-up called the ‘cage’ possibly dates from 1717…
