For the purposes of this project, a lock-up is any building or structure that was used to confine or restrain temporarily those accused of committing a criminal act or apprehended for drunken, disorderly, or riotous behaviour, between 1500 and 1999.

Perhaps most infamous were the purpose-built lock-ups, wooden, stone or brick buildings which contained one or more cells and were often of a distinctive or unusual shape. Some of these continue to shape our local landscapes today. But also typical, especially in provincial towns and emerging cities, was the construction of cells in the basements of town halls and courthouses. And, with the growth of new police forces during the nineteenth century, came both improvised and purpose-built police stations which also contained lock-up cells. Prisons and workhouses were also convenient state institutions in which to situate a few cells for temporary confinement.

Still, this is far from the whole story. Not every local community had a town hall or police station, nor did they necessarily have the funds to erect a purpose-built lock-up. And so, until relatively late in the nineteenth century, officially designated lock-up cells could be found in private dwelling houses, public houses, commercial buildings, and even in churches. Moreover, especially before the nineteenth century, some communities didn’t even bother to provide a shelter for those who were apprehended by the law: they were secured in stocks instead.

Lock-ups were, effectively, a type of prison because they subjected those who were confined in them (or, in the case of stocks, restrained by them) to a form of imprisonment. However, their primary purpose was for temporary confinement. Lock-ups were neither remand centres (where accused criminals awaited trial) nor institutions in which those convicted by the courts served their sentences (however, the line between gaol or house of correction and lock-up could be blurred, as I explain in the introduction to the Guide to the Criminal Prisons of Nineteenth-Century England, available to download on this site).

Instead, lock-ups were used to restrain those accused of committing crime or apprehended for disorderly behaviour for the space of time between their arrest and their appearance before a magistrate who would decide their fate. Lock-ups, therefore, represented the gateway to the criminal justice system. They could also be the limit of some people’s experience with the law. Particularly in the case of the drunk and disorderly, imprisonment in a lock-up was sometimes considered to be punishment enough by the local authorities or community, and the men, women and children who had suffered it were set free to go about their business.

Lock-ups were also used as convenient staging posts for restraining men, women and children already within the criminal justice system who needed to be moved between institutions. For example, lock-up cells in courthouses were filled during the Assizes or Quarter Sessions, as prisoners were brought from local prisons to stand trial. As not every town in which the Assizes or Quarter Sessions were held had prisons, the courthouse cells could be used to confine those on remand for several days. Similarly, there were occasions when prisoners had to be moved between prisons, or from one local jurisdiction to another, journeys which could take several days. In these instances, routes were planned so that nights could be spent in towns with lock-up facilities.

These uses emphasise the temporary nature of lock-up confinement or restraint. Men, women and children rarely spent more than a couple days in the local lock-up; often their time could be counted in hours using the fingers of just two hands. However, this fact should not detract from what a horrific experience such an imprisonment could be. As the data collected for Your Local Lock-up shows, historic lock-ups were often cold and damp with few comforts. They were also dark. Could you survive a night in a local lock-up?

You can search for a lock-up using either the keyword search on the Local Lock-ups home page or the search options on the ‘Find a Lock-up’ page. Please note that the default setting for the map and list of lock-ups on the ‘Find a Lock-up’ page is to return all lock-ups in the database. This should give you an idea of the size and spread of the content in this resource.

Using the keyword search, you can look for a specific lock-up (for example, St Peter’s Hole) or for lock-ups located in a particular place (such as Cambridge or Cambridgeshire). Please note that at this stage, the keyword search does not search the textual descriptions of lock-ups found in most entries.

On the ‘Find a Lock-up’ page, there are a range of additional search criteria that can be used independently or in conjunction with the keyword search. These include: the nation in which lock-ups were situated (the options being the four nations of the British Isles); the county; the century during which lock-ups were in operation; and the type of building or structure in which lock-ups were located.

With regard to the ‘county’ search options, please note that because the data contained in Your Local Lock-up is historic and spans several centuries, we have used historic county names and boundaries, rather than ceremonial counties or past or present local authority units.

For ‘building type’, we created a list of the most common buildings which contained lock-ups and lock-up structures (such as stocks). It is not, by any means, exhaustive! But you can find other types of buildings and structures by using the ‘other’ option.

All of these search criteria have tick-box options which means that you are able to select as many or as few as would be most appropriate for your interests. Please note that each criteria works on an either/or basis. In other words, ticking both Devon and Armagh under ‘County’ would return all lock-ups based either in Devon or Armagh. Similarly, selecting 1700-1799 and 1800-1899, would return all lock-ups which were open either during the eighteenth century or the nineteenth century, as well as those which were operational across both centuries.

When you have chosen your search criteria, hit the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom of the page. Any results will display on the map alongside the search options, and the number of hits will appear at the top of the map.

Local Lock-up search results are displayed on a map of the British Isles (Map View), or, if you prefer, as a textual list (List View). You can toggle between the two options using the tabs at the top of the map. Summary information is provided about each lock-up found in the search to help you to identify those most relevant to your inquiry. This information includes: name of lock-up, place (e.g. town, village or parish), century of operation, and, if in List View, type of building or structure. In Map View, summary information is revealed by clicking on the pins.

If you are using ‘Map View’, please note that because the default map is set to show as much of the British Isles as possible, pins representing multiple lock-ups might be stacked on top of each other. You can zoom in to scatter the pins by using the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ buttons in the bottom right-hand corner of the map. You can also use the person icon above the zoom buttons to access Google Street View, which, in some cases, will allow you to look at the current site on which the lock-up was located (or, in some instances, still is!). You can also access these map functions when you click the ‘Learn More’ button to see the full record for a specific lock-up.

If you are using ‘List View’, you will also be able to use the zoom in/ out buttons on the accompanying map image for each lock-up returned by the search, and you can toggle between map view (Google’s basic street outline) and satellite view, using the image in the left-hand corner of each map. The latter will reveal the local terrain and built environment.

Please note that because of the nature of the surviving evidence on lock-ups, it has not been possible to identify the exact location of every lock-up in the database. On clicking through to individual records, you will find further information which states whether the pin on the map is positioned on the exact location or within the vicinity of the lock-up.

In the Lock-up Search Results, you may also notice that some lock-ups appear to be listed twice. Some towns and often cities had multiple lock-ups in different locations, not just for convenience, but because, in the nineteenth century especially, different authorities operating within the same local area needed their own facilities. For example, within one town, there might be lock-ups belonging to the county and lock-ups belonging to the borough; and/ or lock-up cells in a police station and lock-up cells in the basement of the courthouse.

Old, inconvenient or unhealthy lock-ups were also replaced by new ones. Where repairs or rebuilding happened on the same site, a new record for the lock-up was not created in the database. However, we don’t always have this valuable information about location to help us distinguish between lock-ups. Therefore, where descriptions of lock-ups in similar locations (e.g. same town) clearly did not match, we created separate records for the lock-ups, but retained their similar or identical names. Where date information suggested that a new lock-up had been constructed but no location information was given for one or both lock-ups, separate records for each were created. If you think we might have got it wrong, and the same lock-up has been listed twice, or that one record contains the details for two separate lock-ups, please do get in touch and let us know – we would be very grateful!

Finally, using the ‘Learn More’ button in ‘Map View’, or the ‘View’ button in ‘List View’, you can click through to the detailed information on each lock-up in the database.

From Lock-up Search Results, you can access profiles of all the individual lock-ups in the Your Local Lock-up database. To do this, click on the ‘Learn More’ button in ‘Map View’, or the ‘View’ button in ‘List View’.

The header of the page gives the name most commonly used for the lock-up, either today or in the past. Different types of information and different levels of detail about the lock-up are revealed through using the various menu options on the page.

The tab option, ‘Overview’, is set as the default landing page for each lock-up. The following details about each lock-up are provided in the grey box:

• Alternative names: other names by which the institution was known. This will not appear if there were no alternative names.
• Nation: the nation of the British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales, or Ireland) in which the lock-up was located.
• County: the county within the nation in which the lock-up was located. Please note that because of the time span covered by the database and the historic nature of the data, we have used historic county names and boundaries rather than ceremonial counties or past or present day local authorities.
• Location: the city, town, village or parish in which the lock-up was located, together with, where known, the street name or other nearby landmarks which point to the exact location of the lock-up.
• Map location: Every lock-up has been allocated geographical coordinates (X,Y) in order to display on the map. Where the exact or near exact position of the lock-up has been identified, the note ‘exact or closely approximate’ will appear here. Where we have only limited location information, such as the name of the town or parish, the note ‘in the vicinty’ will appear here.
• Year opened: the year in which the lock-up was built or it was first used.
• Year closed: the year in which the lock-up ceased to function. The building or structure may, however, have continued to be used for other purposes.
• Century of operation: often we don’t know the exact dates when lock-ups were brought into use or were abolished. We do, however, nearly always know of at least one century during which the lock-up was used, and this information appears here. A large number of lock-ups were in use across several centuries and so multiple centuries may appear here. Please note that the field refers to the period in which the building or structure was being used as a lock-up, and not its use for other purposes.
• Building type: a large number of lock-ups were purpose-built. However, lock-up cells could also be erected in other types of buildings, including police stations, town halls and courthouses, but also in prisons and workhouses, and in private dwelling houses, public houses, and even churches. For the purposes of this project, we have included structures used for restraint in the name of criminal justice, such as stocks, in our definition of a lock-up. ‘Other’ denotes a building type which was untypical. Because it is not always possible to tell from surviving records what the type of building was which housed the lock-up, ‘unknown’ appears for ‘building type’ on some records.
• Remarks: these are comments, provided by contributors and database editors, to help with disambiguation and to explain further information provided in the ‘Overview’ box.

We want the key information on lock-ups in the ‘Overview’ box to be as accurate and comprehensive as possible. In other words, we need your help! If you can supply us with any details that are missing, or correct anything that is not accurate, we would be very grateful! To do this, please click on the ‘Anything to Add?’ box which is located below the map in each lock-up record.

Below the ‘Overview’ box are two further categories of information. The first is headed ‘Descriptions’. These are past and present descriptions of the lock-ups that we have found in a variety of sources. Most are physical descriptions, giving an account of what the lock-up looks or looked like and its particular architectural features. Some, especially the historic descriptions, give an idea of the experience of confinement in the lock-up in the past. We want to collect as many past and present descriptions of lock-ups as possible. If you know of one, or if you have a local anecdote about a lock-up in the database, please do tell us about it, by clicking on the ‘Anything to Add’ button in the lock-up record.

The second category of information below the ‘Overview’ box is headed ‘Featured Images’. These are a small selection of images of the lock-up that we have managed to collect. Summary copyright information is included alongside each image.

Clicking on any of the ‘Featured Images’, or on the ‘View More Images’ button below, or on the ‘Images’ tab above the map, will open the full image gallery. Every image associated with that lock-up in the database is displayed here, together with a textual description, and copyright information. You can enlarge each image by clicking on it (and to return to the main page, use the ‘x’ at the top right-hand corner of the image). Visual evidence is critical. It helps us to better understand the similarities and differences between lock-ups, including what was unique to particular time periods and localities. And surviving lock ups are important local monuments. Therefore, we want to collect as many images of lock-ups, past and present, as possible. If you have any images, or if you know of a good source for images, please tell us by clicking on the ‘Anything to Add’ button in the lock-up record or get in touch. We would love to hear from you. (More information on contributing images can also be found in the sections below – ‘Adding New Information to Existing Lock-ups’ and ‘Submitting Information on New Lock-ups’).

The source (or sources) of information from which the existence of the lock-up and its key information has been derived is (are) displayed by using the ‘Sources’ tab above the map, or by clicking on the ‘View Sources’ button at the bottom of the lock-up record, and opening the ‘Sources’ and/ or ‘Archives’ lists.

The first heading, ‘Sources’, contains details of all sources which verify the existence of the lock-up and in which further information about the lock-up can be found. A range of different sources appear here, including printed books, Parliamentary Papers, historic county directories, Historic England’s Listed Buildings and Pastscape, and community and research websites. Because of the nature of the project, we have taken an inclusive and flexible approach to the types of sources from which the existence of lock-ups can be proven.

The existence and details of some lock-ups have been obtained from surviving archival material in borough and county record offices. The details of these documents are given under ‘Archives’, including:

• Catalogue Reference (or Ref): The shelfmark or catalogue number assigned to the piece, file, or collection by the repository. You’ll need this if you want to see the original.
• Collection: The name of the collection to which the piece or file belongs (where available and appropriate).
• Archive: The name of the repository where the record is located.
• Dates: The dates covered by the record.
• Description: A description of the piece or file.

Finally, at the very bottom of each lock-up record is a ‘Comments’ facility. Want to start a conversation about the lock-up? Perhaps you have an anecdote about it, or some local knowledge that you’d like to share? Or perhaps the information you have found out about the lock-up has proved useful in some way and you’d like to let us know? Please leave us a comment, because we would love to hear your thoughts. Just type a reply into the comment box, verify it with your email address, and click ‘Post Comment’.

(Please note that because we need to protect the site from spam, the database editors need to read and approve every comment submitted to the site. In busy periods, it might take a day or two to release your comment. We thank you in advance for your patience.)

Do you have more information about one of the lock-ups in the Local Lock-ups database? Or have you noticed that something is incorrect on the record of a specific lock up? Do you have any images, or detailed descriptions, which you would be willing to add to the lock-up record or to tell us about?

To make this resource as detailed and accurate as possible, we need your help. Please suggest additions or corrections to individual lock-ups in the database by using the ‘Anything to Add?’ button on the lock-up record display – it’s located right under the map image, connected to the ‘Overview’ box. Please use this facility if you can, because it automatically attaches any new information you provide us with to the lock-up record, making it easier at our end to complete the updates. Alternatively, you can always ‘contact us’ to let us know about any suggestions for improvement that you might have.

The ‘Anything to Add’ button will redirect you to an ‘Update Lock-up’ page, where you will be given a form to fill in with details of the additions and/ or corrections. The first question on the form – that is, the name of the lock-up for which you would like to contribute information about – will be completed automatically for you.

Next is a large text box which asks for the information that you would like to tell us. Because this is an historical project, we are especially keen to know the source of any new information. We do, however, take a very flexible and inclusive approach to the types of sources from which information might be derived. If the information comes from local knowledge handed down, that is perfectly valid, and please just tell us.

We are very keen to add as many historical and contemporary images as possible to the lock-ups in our database. Visual evidence is critical, for understanding the variety of buildings and structures used for temporary confinement, and because surviving lock-ups are important local monuments. We would be so grateful if you could contribute images to existing records. This includes any images that you have taken yourself. (Tips on photographing lock-ups are provided in the next section of this Guide, ‘Submitting Information on New Lock-ups’.)

Images can be uploaded to the form from your hard drive by clicking in the ‘image upload’ box. This will bring up a dialogue box allowing you to access files on your hard drive for upload. Simply navigate to the correct folder on your hard drive, and select the image you want to upload. Alternatively, some internet browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, will allow you to ‘drag and drop’ images from your hard drive into the form. Simply  click-and-hold  the icon or title of the image you want to submit, drag it from your desktop or other hard drive folder, and drop it into the image upload box provided on the form. It should be as simple as that, but if you do need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

In order to use images, we need to know the source and we need to have permission. We would be very grateful if you could tell us where the image comes from in the box above the image upload facility. That way we can check copyright and reuse conditions. If you are giving us a picture of the lock-up that belongs to you, including those you have taken with your own camera, we still need to know if we have your permission to put it on the site. Feel free to include a caption for or a brief description of your image – we would love to display this information with your image.

The image upload box can accept multiple images, if you have them. Each should be uploaded in the same way. It would be very helpful if you could give us source and permissions information in the order in which images are uploaded. A brief description of the image accompanying this information would be very gratefully received!

Finally, when suggesting additions and corrections to existing lock ups, we need your name and email address. This is just to verify the information you have given us and to protect the site against spam. We will not keep your details on file unless you ask us to. More information on how we use your personal data can be found here.

When you have completed the form, please click on the ‘Submit’ button. If submission is successful, you will be redirected to a page thanking you for your contribution. If you have any questions about your submission, or if there is anything further you want to tell us, please do get in touch. If you have more to contribute to this project, why not consider ‘Becoming a Contributor’?

We want to recover as many historical lock-ups as possible. But this is only possible with the help of lots of people with a shared interest in local history across all four nations of the British Isles. And that is why Your Local Lock-up includes a facility to submit the details of new lock-ups to the database.

Anyone can submit details of a new lock-up to the database: you do not need to be registered with the site or known to the project team. However, if you have multiple lock-ups that you’d like to submit, or if you want to directly manage your lock-up in the database, or if you’d like to make a more substantial contribution to the project, please consider ‘Becoming a Contributor’.

Before you submit a new lock-up to the database, we recommend, if you haven’t already, that you conduct a brief search to make sure that we do not have your lock-up in the database. There is a link to the search facility on the ‘Submit Your Lock-up’ page, or you can search using the facility on the landing page, or clicking on ‘Find a Lock-up’ in the site menu. If you find an existing lock-up in the database that was located in the same area but you are unsure if it is the same as yours, please go ahead and submit yours. You can use the further details section on the form to let us know about the similar, existing record.

If we do not have your local lock-up in the database, then we are very keen to have it. The ‘Submit Your Lock-up’ page features a form for submitting details to us. At first glance, the form appears long, but we do not expect you to be able to answer every question on it. There are a lot of questions, because this gives us the best chance of capturing some data that can be compared across time and localities. No question on the form is compulsory.

The information we are seeking on each lock-up is as follows:

• Lock-up name: the name by which the lock-up is known. This might be very distinctive, such as Litlington Cage, or Swaffham Prior Pound, Lock-up and Fire Engine House. Most primary names, however, are constructed from the name of the village or parish and the word ‘lock-up’. If your lock up does not have a common name, please follow this convention.
• Alternative names: some lock-ups were known by several names. For example, Litlington Cage was also known as St Peter’s Hole. Sometimes alternative names include a specific local term used for a lock-up, such as ‘blind house’ or ‘kidcote’. If your lock-up was or is known by any other names, please enter them here.
• Nation: please select, from the drop down list, the nation in which your lock up could/ can be found.
• County: please select from the drop down list, the county in which your lock up could/ can be found. Because this is an historical dataset that spans several centuries, we have used historic counties rather than ceremonial counties or past or present local government boundaries. Historic counties for parishes or parts of cities can usually be determined by using a quick Google search.
• Town/ village/ parish: we need to know the name of the place in which the lock-up stood. The place could be a city, town, village, or parish.
• Any other location: here we are looking for street names (with numbers if possible), or proximity to other landmarks, anything that might help us to put an accurate pin in our map of lock-ups, and enable those who are interested to find the original site.
• Google maps link: if you can provide us with a Google maps URL showing the position of your lock-up, we would be very grateful. The URL can be obtained by searching for the lock-up location on Google maps (using an address or postcode) and then copying and pasting the URL from the address line of the browser into this field on the form.
• Year opened: this is the year in which the lock-up began to function as a lock-up. Some buildings in which lock-ups were situated, such as town halls, predated the lock-ups by many years, sometimes centuries. If you know the date for the establishment of the building but not for the lock-up, put ‘unknown’ in this field. Some purpose-built lock-ups have date-stones, and in this case the year displayed on the date-stone can be entered in this field.
• Year closed: the year in which the lock-up ceased to function. Like for ‘year opened’, some buildings in which lock-ups were situated continued in their other functions after the lock-ups had fallen into disuse. When only the date of the demolition or change of function of these buildings is known, and not the year during which the lock-up ceased to function, put ‘unknown’ in this field. Many purpose-built lock-ups continued to be used for other purposes or were left derelict long after they had ceased to function as temporary places of confinement. In this case, the year in which the lock-up ceased to be used as a lock-up should be given, and not the date of demolition, for example.
• Century of operation: Even when we do not know the exact years during which lock-ups were open, we often know in which centuries they were used. Please tick as many centuries as you think apply to your lock-up.
• Building type: please select a description (or several, if appropriate) of the building or structure that contained cells or other equipment for confinement or restraint.
  • Lock-up: buildings which were purpose-built lock-ups and served no other function. They are often found on village greens or in some other significant location in a town or parish. Sometimes purpose-built lock-ups were placed in the yard of the parish church or the local workhouse, and sometimes police stations were adjacent. In these cases, please select lock-up and the other appropriate building type.
  • Prison: when a number of cells in a local prison were reserved to serve as the local lock-up. Alternatively, some former prisons were converted into lock-ups or police stations containing lock-ups.
  • Police station: cells located in a police station, or in the yard of a police station.
  • Church: some churches contained cells for purposes of local criminal justice.
  • Courthouse: cells in a courthouse. These were typically used to hold prisoners for the duration of the Assizes or Quarter Sessions.
  • Town Hall: including Guildhalls. Many town halls contained lock-up cells, typically in their basements. Some town halls also housed the police station with cells.
  • Workhouse: while some workhouses had purpose-built lock-ups in their grounds, others had lock-up cells for the purposes of local criminal justices within their buildings.
  • Public house: some local pubs had spaces or cells that served as the local lock-up and/ or that could be used as a staging post when prisoners were being moved between localities.
  • Dwelling house: some private dwelling houses contained lock-up cells, for example, in their basements.
  • Stocks: often boards of wood with holes to secure arms and/ or legs.
  • Other: our list of building types is not exhaustive. If none of the options accurately describe your lock-up, then please select other, and tell us in the accompanying box what building was used as a place of temporary confinement.
• Further details: please use this box to tell us anything else about your lock-up which expands on the information entered in the other boxes, or helps with disambiguation. We are also keen to hear anything interesting you can tell us about your lock-up, such as key events in its history.

In addition to this core information on lock-ups, the form asks a series of more detailed questions, some of which we hope you will be able to answer.

First, we would like to know about your source of information, either for the existence of the lock-up (especially if it has since been demolished) or for the details you have provided about it. Because of the nature of the project, we have adopted an inclusive approach to sources of information. So, for example, you might have found a reference to the lock-up in a published book, or on a website; it might be described in an historical source such as a county directory; or you might have discovered a plaque on a building or have received some ‘local knowledge’ that you’d like to share with us. Please click on the ‘Add a Source’ button, and provide the details of the source in the relevant box. There is also an additional box for a website address (URL) if appropriate. If you have more than one source for your information on the lock-up, click on ‘Add a source’ again to enter details of another.

Second, we are also collecting information about any archival documents that survive on specific lock-ups. Sometimes it is through documents in local record offices that we know a lock-up existed in the first place. If you know of any surviving archival documents that refer to your lock-up, please click on ‘Add an archival source’ and enter the following information:

• Archive name: The name of the repository where the record is located.
• Description: A description of the piece or file. For example, ‘Standing Joint Committee minutes on what to do with our lock-up’.
• Dates: The dates covered by the record.
• Collection: The name of the collection to which the piece or file belongs (where available and appropriate).
• Catalogue reference (or Ref): The shelfmark or catalogue number assigned to the piece, file, or collection by the repository. You’ll need this if you want to see the original.

To enter another archival source, please click on ‘Add an archival source’ again.

Not only does the information provided under ‘Source’ and ‘Archives’ help to verify the existence of a lock-up, but it also provides others with an incredibly valuable starting point for research. We want to make Your Local Lock-up both a leading resource for, and a record of, local history research.

Third, we are collecting descriptions of lock-ups, both historical and contemporary. These are especially valuable when there are no surviving visual records: we want to know what the lock-up looked like, how big it was, and what was inside of it. Not only will physical descriptions allow us to understand similarities and differences in lock-up design and construction across time and place, but they will also begin to give us a sense of what it was like to be confined in a lock-up.

If you have a description that you can share with us, please click on the ‘Add a description’ button and complete the relevant fields. In addition to the description itself, we need to know where it comes from and, if you have it, the date (approximate) when it was written. Multiple descriptions from different sources can be entered by clicking on the ‘Add a description’ button for each.

Fourth, we want images of lock-ups, both historical and contemporary. Nothing conveys the experience of confinement in a lock-up better than a picture. Visual evidence is also critical for understanding these monuments and structures. If your lock-up survives and you are able to take some photographs of it to send us, here are some suggestions of the types of pictures we love:

• Exterior: a photo which captures the entire building.
• Exterior – in situ: a photo which shows the lock-up in its landscape – what surrounds the monument, and where is it positioned in the village or town?
• Exterior – physical features: such as close-up photos of doors, apertures, any distinctive features (crosses or other symbols), date-stones, inscriptions, plaques, or information boards.
• Interior: if you are able to gain access to the inside of the building, photos of cells, fittings, furnishings, facilities (such as toilets), ceilings, and passages are highly prized.

If you have any images you can share with us, please click in the ‘image upload’ box. This will bring up a dialogue box allowing you to access files on your hard drive for upload. Simply navigate to the correct folder on your hard drive, and select the image you want to upload. Alternatively, some internet browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, will allow you to ‘drag and drop’ images from your hard drive into the form. Simply  click-and-hold  the icon or title of the image you want to submit, drag it from your desktop or other hard drive folder, and drop it into the image upload box provided on the form. It should be as simple as that, but if you do need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The image upload box accepts multiple images. If you have more than one image to contribute, simply click on the box again, and repeat the process (or drag and drop from your folder).

We would be grateful if you could supply us with a brief description of or caption for your image that we could publish alongside it. Please put this in the ‘Image description‘ box. Brief descriptions such as ‘Exterior’ or ‘Interior’ are welcome. Feel free to transcribe the text from any plaques on the lock-up, or to describe any features that stand out – such as doors, or particular facilities, or perhaps even graffiti. It is impossible to over-estimate the value of this kind of information.

In order to use images, we need to know the source and we need to have permission. We would be very grateful if you could tell us where the image comes from, using the ‘Image source‘ and, if appropriate, ‘Image source URL‘ boxes below the image upload box. To comply with copyright laws, if we don’t know where an image comes from, we can’t display it on the lock-up record. Even if the images come from your camera, we need to know that we have your permission to use them.

If you are submitting multiple images, please put the descriptions and source information for all images in the three boxes provided, preferably in the order in which the images were uploaded. We will attach information to each image during the editorial process.

Finally, before you submit the details of your lock-up to our system, we ask for your email address. This allows us to get in touch with you about any of the details you have supplied in the form. You are under no obligation to supply your email address. If you do, we will use it for no other purpose than that stated. Nor will we retain any personal data. For more information on the management of personal data, follow this link.

To submit the completed new lock-up form, please click the ‘Submit’ button. If the submission is successful you will be redirected to a ‘thank you’ page. Lock-ups submitted to the database will not immediately appear in the live site. In order to secure the site against spam, a member of the editorial team will release the record after checking it.

To submit another lock-up to the database, you can use the link on the ‘thank you’ page, or reload the lock-up submission from from the site menu. If you want to submit more than two lock-ups consecutively, please get in touch, as our site security settings which protect the database from malicious attacks  might prevent you from making multiple submissions.  Alternatively, please consider becoming a contributor, which will allow us to register you with the site and facilitate multiple submissions.

We welcome additions and corrections to information on lock-ups already in our database, and submissions of new lock-ups to our database, from anyone and everyone. You don’t need to have registered with our site to make a contribution to this project.

However, if you have more to give, in terms of information and/ or time, or if you have a particular interest in managing the data for a lock-up or group of lock-ups, then please consider registering with the site to Become a Contributor.

As a registered ‘Contributor’, you will effectively become a member of the project team. You will be given a username and password which will allow you to manage directly your contributions to the project, including lock-ups which you have submitted to the database, comments you have made on specific lock-ups, and any stories you have written for the Your Stories section of the site. We will also keep in touch with you regularly, and send you general updates on the project.

Reasons you might consider becoming a contributor could include:

• You have a general interest in lock-ups and/ or criminal justice history and you would like to get involved. We can suggest small projects which would help us to grow and improve the data. For example, perhaps you might be interested in extracting information about lock-ups from historical sources that we have identified.
• You belong to a local history society which has an interest in one or several lock-ups, extant or extinct. We would be happy to allow you to curate the records of your local lock-up on this site.
• You are operating a business out of a former lock-up or you are responsible for a heritage site which includes a lock up. We would like to work with you to protect and promote the history of your lock-up, and to demonstrate how these buildings can be used as important community hubs.

To Become a Contributor, all we need from you are some basic details which can be sent to us using the online form on the relevant page. Specifically, we would like to know:

• Your name.
• Your email address: so we can get in touch with you.
• A little information about yourself: or, more specifically, why you are interested in becoming a contributor on this project. It would be very helpful to know what kind of contribution you might like to make to the project. For example, are you generally interested in the project and would like to give us some of your time by working through sources that we give you in order to identify new lock-ups? Do you know have information on several lock-ups that you would like to submit and manage? Is your business based in a former lock-up and you would like to curate the records for the lock-up on this site?
• Workplace: if relevant – for example, if you are employed at an archive, or a prison or police museum, or if your business operates out of a former lock-up.
• School: if relevant – for example, if you are a teacher or student and keen to contribute to improve a teaching resource or as part of a school project.
• Local Group: if relevant – for example, a local history society, or family history society, or a community archives group.
• Website: if relevant – if your relevant business has a website, or if you have a personal blog which you use to disseminate information on the history of criminal justice, or similar.

Once you have entered your details, click on the ‘Submit’ button. If your submission has been successful, you will be redirected to a page thanking you for your interest in the project and offer of help. A member of the project team will receive your details and will get in touch with you as soon as possible to complete the registration process, that is, to discuss how you would like to contribute and to organise passwords and editorial permissions. Detailed instructions on how to login to the site and manage your submissions will be sent to you at this stage.

Finally, thank you for considering becoming a contributor. We want this to be a project which serves the needs of communities, which means your input is highly valued. We hope to welcome you onboard.

As part of the Your Local Lock-up project, we added a new feature to the Prison History website: Your Stories.

Your Stories is a collection of short articles submitted by users of Prison History on historic prisons and lock-ups which feature in either 19th Century Prisons or Your Local Lock-up. Content of the stories ranges from accounts of museums or displays about or situated in historic prisons or lock-ups; the conversion of prison buildings or lock-ups into new businesses; the restoration of historic prisons or lock-ups by local communities or heritage groups; research projects on prisons and/ or lock-ups; and accounts of how the data contained in Prison History has been used by local communities and organisations.

The Your Stories page contains a list of all the stories available to read, together with a short summary of their content. To read a story, click on the ‘Read More’ button.

For further information on submitting stories, please see below.

We want to hear Your Stories about the prisons and lock-ups which feature in Prison History. Perhaps you have set up a museum or display on an historic prison or lock-up either within the monument or close to its site? Maybe you have converted an old lock-up or prison building into a new business? Have you, as a member of a local historical society (or similar) undertaken research on prisons or lock-ups in your local area? Are you part of a local community keen to raise awareness about your local lock-up, or funds to aid its restoration as a heritage site? Or have you found the data contained in either 19th Century Prisons or Your Local Lock-up useful for a particular project or other purpose?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if you have a story about any historic prison or lock-up , we would love to hear from you and to put your story on our website.

To submit a story, contact us, or go to ‘Contribute a Story’. Here you will find a short form which asks for some essential information. We need:

• A story title: please give us a short title for your story. Even just the name of the prison or lock-up which the story is about would be fine.
• Your story: please enter the text of your story here. Your should be able to cut and paste from a word document into this box if necessary. Please don’t worry too much about formatting as we can sort that out in the editing process. As a rough guide, we expect stories will be about 1000 words, but we are very happy to accept shorter and longer submissions. Please write as little or as much as you think is necessary to tell your story.
• Images: we are very keen to include visual material with the stories featured on the site. Images can be uploaded to the form from your hard drive by clicking in the ‘image upload’ box. This will bring up a dialogue box allowing you to access files on your hard drive for upload. Simply navigate to the correct folder on your hard drive, and select the image you want to upload. Alternatively, some internet browsers, such as Chrome and Firefox, will allow you to ‘drag and drop’ images from your hard drive into the form. Simply click-and-hold  the icon or title of the image you want to submit, drag it from your desktop or other hard drive folder, and drop it into the image upload box provided on the form. It should be as simple as that, but if you do need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us. The image upload box can accept multiple images, if you have them. Each should be uploaded in the same way.
• Image information: In order to use images, we need to know the source and we need to have permission. We would be very grateful if you could tell us where the image comes from in this box. That way we can check copyright and reuse conditions. If you are giving us a picture of the lock-up that belongs to you, including those you have taken with your own camera, we still need to know if we have your permission to put it on the site. Feel free to include a caption or description for your image – we would love to display this information with your image. If you are uploading multiple images, it would be very helpful if you could give us source and permissions information in the order in which images are uploaded. A brief description of the image accompanying this information would be very gratefully received!
• Your name: we would like to know your name so that we can discuss your submission with you. We will not publish your name on this site without your permission.
• Your email: we need your email address so that we can contact you about your submission. We will not publish your email address on this site unless you expressly state that you want us to. For more information about how we handle your personal data, follow this link.

When you have completed the form, please click the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom of the page. If your submission has been successful, you will be redirected to a page thinking you for your contribution. Your story will be sent to one of the project team who will be in touch with any questions and will arrange for it to be uploaded on the site.

If, after publication, there is anything you want to add to your story, or to change or correct, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.