VILLAGE LOCK-UP
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'Village lock-ups' were temporary holding places for detaining people in rural parts of England and Wales.
A typical lock-up was a small building of varying shape - some round, some polygonal, and some square in plan with a single, or sometimes double cell. They were usually built from bricks or large stones, although many built in areas where brick and stone was not readily available and therefore expensive, were built in timber. Their greatest fascination is in their shape, many featuring a dome or a spire - the lock-up at Castle Cary includes a domed roof that is often claimed to have been the inspiration for the design of the modern Policeman's helmet.
Village lock-ups have a variety of names: guard house, watchhouse, blind house, kitty (Cockermouth) clink, bonehouse, bridewell, cage, jug, lobby, gaol, and roundhouse. The term ‘clink’ derives from the Clink Prison which stood in what is now Clink Street in London’s Bankside. It was the private prison of the Bishop of Winchester serving his London manor: the Liberty of the Clink. For almost 300 years, it was used to hold martyrs, debtors, whores, thieves and even actors. The Bishop also retained the privilige to sanction other punishments, including the stocks, the ducking stool and whippings.
Lock-ups were often used for the confinement of drunks who were usually released the next day or to hold people being brought before the local magistrate.
Over time the village lock-up has become synonymous with drunkenness and many references to this coupling can be found in famous works of literature, including Barnaby Rudge (by Charles Dickens) and The Water Babies (by Charles Kingsley) which contains the following line: 'Put him in the round house till he gets sober'.
Over 200 lock-ups are currently recorded in England and Wales, with many clustered in Essex, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and a high concentration in Wiltshire and Somerset. In some counties, they are much more rare: in Hampshire, for example, there are remains of one in Avington Lane in Easton, and in the Bridewell at Odiham.
In the 18th and 19th centuries rural communities struggled to police thefts, burglaries, shootings, drunkenness, the obstruction of watchmen, and the stealing of livestock. The latter remained a capital offence until 1872.
During this period a number of lock-ups were built as a place of detention for local rogues and miscreants until they could be removed to a town. Some roundhouses also had stocks, ducking stools, pillories, or pinfolds alongside.
The history of the village lock-up is comparatively short, especially when set along side the noble stocks, which have survived in Britain for almost a millennium. Long before the creation of the humble parish gaol, all malefactors could expect to be unceremoniously deposited in the dungeon or oubliette of the local castle. There he (and sometimes she) would resign himself to the fact that there was no Court of Appeal and all he could look forward to was the prospect of being manacled to the wall of a dark and urine-infested hole and being left to die with nothing but a bale of straw and a few rats to keep him company. Little wonder then that the long walk to the gallows, the stake or the boiling pot, and a chance to enter local folk-lore, seemed a somewhat more dignified way to go! Later on came the arrival of the County Gaol, still a dark and unforgiving place, but one which was comparatively more civil. These punishment houses offered hard labour and serious retribution for all criminals, and in which serious offenders could expect to leave only on their way to the gallows.
One of the earliest recorded lock-ups was ‘The Tun’, which was erected in 1282 at Cornhill, in central London. It was built on the instruction of Henry le Waleis, then Mayor of London, and was essentially a two-storey barrel with a single cell on each floor. Like so many of its later successors, this rather functional building was remarkably decorative in its appearance with a plate traceried window set at first floor level between each of the twelve vertical ribs: the ground floor was devoid of large windows for obvious security reasons. It appears to have had a flat roof and an ornamental frieze.
The Tun was used to detain anyone who broke the city’s curfew. These were mainly drunks, villains, prostitutes and their clients. Other regular detainees included traders accused of selling underweight or bad produce, bakers and millers caught stealing flour, and priests caught having sexual intercourse with women. Although it was to have been demolished in 1275, it remained in use as a prison until 1401. At that time a new lock-up cage and set of stocks were set up near to the site, and the Tun itself became a cistern for the new water supply which was piped across town from Tyburn.
In comparison with the earlier dungeon alternatives, the arrival of the humble lock-up must have been something of a relief to local felons, especially those who occasionally committed the lesser crime of selling bad ale or underweight bread or meat, or who entertained friends on a Sunday. It was also a more comforting prospect to the men and women who took advantage of the fact that gin was a penny a gill, while ale was a penny a pint.
In addition to their more obvious function as a place to detain felons overnight before being taken to the Magistrates Court, and as a place to secure people who were drunk while they sobered up, the lock-up often played a key role in the maintenance and control of the poor and homeless. Before lock-ups were commonplace, the usual place of stay for a vagrant or a pauper would be at a local public house, where the innkeeper would receive a fixed sum for his trouble and expenses: in Derbyshire, for example, the County Allowance in 1790 was set at one shilling per head per night. However, as this was often considered a paltry sum, admittance was sometimes refused by landlords. In such circumstances the Constable was permitted to use stables, outhouses, agricultural buildings or other building that he considered secure for the purpose.
The introduction of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act allowed for changes in the treatment of paupers and vagrants, and with the additional improvements in transportation to take felons to jail, the role of the lock-up was probably reduced to detaining overnight any drunks. In many cases, the absence of proper records strengthens the belief that the drunks were then released the next day with no formal record made of their incarceration. This was not necessarily true.
In early times there was no need for prisons. Punishment was swift and savage, often involving death, mutilation or a cash settlement. Although the church was one of the principle exponents of this barbaric system, it nonetheless disgusted many churchmen who eventually succeeded in introducing the notion of imprisonment for ordinary citizens. In the beginning, there were separate prisons for men and women. Only later were prisoners of both sexes housed together.
The village lock-up fell out of use when the County Police Act was introduced in 1839, and local police stations were built with their own holding facilities. Leicestershire Police Force, for example, was one of the first to be established in 1839. The Act allowed Justices of the Peace to set up a paid police force in each county, and made it compulsory for that force to be provided with proper police stations and secure cells. The village lock-up became a redundant edifice as a result, and only a relatively few have survived the intervening century and a half.
During World War II many lock-ups were used by the Home Guard as sentry posts or places for storing arms. In recent years a number of lock-ups have been lovingly restored, graded as listed buildings, and often presented as examples of rural history or even as curious tourist attractions.
One anecdote is of Eliza Soar (landlady of the Staff of Life public house, Ticknall) whose back door key fitted the village lock-up. She let the drunks out after the constable had gone home. On one Ticknall feast day, a number of Melbourne men were locked up for riotous behaviour. Their wives invaded Ticknall in the night, and Soar was able to release their husbands, thus preventing a worse breach of the peace.
A description of a lock-up at Taunton, written in 1830 describes: 'a hole into which drunken and bleeding men were thrust and allowed to remain until the following day when the constable with his staff of office take the poor, crippled and dirty wretches before a magistrate, followed by half the boys and idle fellows of the town'.
Below is list of existing lock-ups in England and Wales.
''An asterisk is used to denote lock-ups that have been assimilated into other buildings such as a church or house.''
★ Clophill
★ Harrold
★ Pangbourne
★ Wendover
★
★ Broughton
★ Eaton Socon
★ Fenstanton
★ Needingworth
★ Alfreton House of Confinement, King Street (built 1820s)
★ Curbar
★ Cromford
★ Derwent Valley Mills
★
★ Sandiacre
★ Smisby
★ Ticknall
★ Wirksworth
★ in North End, and now part of a B&B establishment
★ Bradwell on Sea
★ Great Bardfield
★ Orsett
★ Steeple Bumpstead
★ Tollesbury
★ Bisley
★ Cirencester
★ Westerleigh
★
★ Petersham
★ Anstey
★ Ashwell
★ Barley
★ Shenley
★ Lenham
★ Wateringbury
★ Barrow-upon-Soar
★ Breedon-on-the-Hill
★ Packington
★ Worthington
★ Deeping St James
★ Everton
★ Wavertree
★ Edwinstowe
★ Mansfield Woodhouse
★
★ Tuxford
★ Stonesfield
★ Wheatley
★ Castle Cary
★ Kingsbury Episcopi
★ Monkton Combe
★ Alton
★ Gnosall
★ Sproughton
★ Woolpit
★ Charlwood
★ Ewell
★ Lingfield
★ Bradford-on-Avon
★ Bromham
★ Lacock
★ Steeple Ashton
★ Shrewton
★ Trowbridge
★ Oswaldkirk
★ Wath-upon-Dearne
★ North Stainley
★ Ruabon
★ Bagillt
★ Barmouth
★ The crest of Everton Football Club features a roundhouse based on Prince Rupert's Tower which still stands on Everton Brow, Liverpool.
★ D. H. Lawrence and his German-born wife Frieda had to report to the lock-up in Wirksworth during the First World War when they lived at Middleton-by-Wirksworth.
★ The shape of the roof over the Castle Cary lock-up is said to have been the inspiration for the design of the modern policeman's helmet.
# Oxford English Dictionary.
# Kingsley, Charles. The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby.
# The Round House Worthington, Worthington Parish Council Pamphlet, produced by North West Leicestershire District Council.
Bridewell Palace
★ Bagillt Heritage Society
★ Bisley Village Online Website
★ Petersham Pound and Lock-up [1]
★ Smisby Village Online Website
★ Shipman, Juliet The Bisley Lock-up: A story of crime and punishment
A typical lock-up was a small building of varying shape - some round, some polygonal, and some square in plan with a single, or sometimes double cell. They were usually built from bricks or large stones, although many built in areas where brick and stone was not readily available and therefore expensive, were built in timber. Their greatest fascination is in their shape, many featuring a dome or a spire - the lock-up at Castle Cary includes a domed roof that is often claimed to have been the inspiration for the design of the modern Policeman's helmet.
Village lock-ups have a variety of names: guard house, watchhouse, blind house, kitty (Cockermouth) clink, bonehouse, bridewell, cage, jug, lobby, gaol, and roundhouse. The term ‘clink’ derives from the Clink Prison which stood in what is now Clink Street in London’s Bankside. It was the private prison of the Bishop of Winchester serving his London manor: the Liberty of the Clink. For almost 300 years, it was used to hold martyrs, debtors, whores, thieves and even actors. The Bishop also retained the privilige to sanction other punishments, including the stocks, the ducking stool and whippings.
Lock-ups were often used for the confinement of drunks who were usually released the next day or to hold people being brought before the local magistrate.
Over time the village lock-up has become synonymous with drunkenness and many references to this coupling can be found in famous works of literature, including Barnaby Rudge (by Charles Dickens) and The Water Babies (by Charles Kingsley) which contains the following line: 'Put him in the round house till he gets sober'.
Over 200 lock-ups are currently recorded in England and Wales, with many clustered in Essex, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and a high concentration in Wiltshire and Somerset. In some counties, they are much more rare: in Hampshire, for example, there are remains of one in Avington Lane in Easton, and in the Bridewell at Odiham.
History and uses
In the 18th and 19th centuries rural communities struggled to police thefts, burglaries, shootings, drunkenness, the obstruction of watchmen, and the stealing of livestock. The latter remained a capital offence until 1872.
During this period a number of lock-ups were built as a place of detention for local rogues and miscreants until they could be removed to a town. Some roundhouses also had stocks, ducking stools, pillories, or pinfolds alongside.
The history of the village lock-up is comparatively short, especially when set along side the noble stocks, which have survived in Britain for almost a millennium. Long before the creation of the humble parish gaol, all malefactors could expect to be unceremoniously deposited in the dungeon or oubliette of the local castle. There he (and sometimes she) would resign himself to the fact that there was no Court of Appeal and all he could look forward to was the prospect of being manacled to the wall of a dark and urine-infested hole and being left to die with nothing but a bale of straw and a few rats to keep him company. Little wonder then that the long walk to the gallows, the stake or the boiling pot, and a chance to enter local folk-lore, seemed a somewhat more dignified way to go! Later on came the arrival of the County Gaol, still a dark and unforgiving place, but one which was comparatively more civil. These punishment houses offered hard labour and serious retribution for all criminals, and in which serious offenders could expect to leave only on their way to the gallows.
One of the earliest recorded lock-ups was ‘The Tun’, which was erected in 1282 at Cornhill, in central London. It was built on the instruction of Henry le Waleis, then Mayor of London, and was essentially a two-storey barrel with a single cell on each floor. Like so many of its later successors, this rather functional building was remarkably decorative in its appearance with a plate traceried window set at first floor level between each of the twelve vertical ribs: the ground floor was devoid of large windows for obvious security reasons. It appears to have had a flat roof and an ornamental frieze.
The Tun was used to detain anyone who broke the city’s curfew. These were mainly drunks, villains, prostitutes and their clients. Other regular detainees included traders accused of selling underweight or bad produce, bakers and millers caught stealing flour, and priests caught having sexual intercourse with women. Although it was to have been demolished in 1275, it remained in use as a prison until 1401. At that time a new lock-up cage and set of stocks were set up near to the site, and the Tun itself became a cistern for the new water supply which was piped across town from Tyburn.
In comparison with the earlier dungeon alternatives, the arrival of the humble lock-up must have been something of a relief to local felons, especially those who occasionally committed the lesser crime of selling bad ale or underweight bread or meat, or who entertained friends on a Sunday. It was also a more comforting prospect to the men and women who took advantage of the fact that gin was a penny a gill, while ale was a penny a pint.
In addition to their more obvious function as a place to detain felons overnight before being taken to the Magistrates Court, and as a place to secure people who were drunk while they sobered up, the lock-up often played a key role in the maintenance and control of the poor and homeless. Before lock-ups were commonplace, the usual place of stay for a vagrant or a pauper would be at a local public house, where the innkeeper would receive a fixed sum for his trouble and expenses: in Derbyshire, for example, the County Allowance in 1790 was set at one shilling per head per night. However, as this was often considered a paltry sum, admittance was sometimes refused by landlords. In such circumstances the Constable was permitted to use stables, outhouses, agricultural buildings or other building that he considered secure for the purpose.
The introduction of the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act allowed for changes in the treatment of paupers and vagrants, and with the additional improvements in transportation to take felons to jail, the role of the lock-up was probably reduced to detaining overnight any drunks. In many cases, the absence of proper records strengthens the belief that the drunks were then released the next day with no formal record made of their incarceration. This was not necessarily true.
In early times there was no need for prisons. Punishment was swift and savage, often involving death, mutilation or a cash settlement. Although the church was one of the principle exponents of this barbaric system, it nonetheless disgusted many churchmen who eventually succeeded in introducing the notion of imprisonment for ordinary citizens. In the beginning, there were separate prisons for men and women. Only later were prisoners of both sexes housed together.
The village lock-up fell out of use when the County Police Act was introduced in 1839, and local police stations were built with their own holding facilities. Leicestershire Police Force, for example, was one of the first to be established in 1839. The Act allowed Justices of the Peace to set up a paid police force in each county, and made it compulsory for that force to be provided with proper police stations and secure cells. The village lock-up became a redundant edifice as a result, and only a relatively few have survived the intervening century and a half.
During World War II many lock-ups were used by the Home Guard as sentry posts or places for storing arms. In recent years a number of lock-ups have been lovingly restored, graded as listed buildings, and often presented as examples of rural history or even as curious tourist attractions.
One anecdote is of Eliza Soar (landlady of the Staff of Life public house, Ticknall) whose back door key fitted the village lock-up. She let the drunks out after the constable had gone home. On one Ticknall feast day, a number of Melbourne men were locked up for riotous behaviour. Their wives invaded Ticknall in the night, and Soar was able to release their husbands, thus preventing a worse breach of the peace.
A description of a lock-up at Taunton, written in 1830 describes: 'a hole into which drunken and bleeding men were thrust and allowed to remain until the following day when the constable with his staff of office take the poor, crippled and dirty wretches before a magistrate, followed by half the boys and idle fellows of the town'.
Existing lock-up locations by county (incomplete)
Below is list of existing lock-ups in England and Wales.
''An asterisk is used to denote lock-ups that have been assimilated into other buildings such as a church or house.''
England
Bedfordshire
★ Clophill
★ Harrold
Berkshire
★ Pangbourne
Buckinghamshire
★ Wendover
★
Cambridgeshire
★ Broughton
★ Eaton Socon
★ Fenstanton
★ Needingworth
Derbyshire
★ Alfreton House of Confinement, King Street (built 1820s)
★ Curbar
★ Cromford
★ Derwent Valley Mills
★
★ Sandiacre
★ Smisby
★ Ticknall
★ Wirksworth
★ in North End, and now part of a B&B establishment
Essex
★ Bradwell on Sea
★ Great Bardfield
★ Orsett
★ Steeple Bumpstead
★ Tollesbury
Gloucestershire
★ Bisley
★ Cirencester
★ Westerleigh
★
Greater London
★ Petersham
Hertfordshire
★ Anstey
★ Ashwell
★ Barley
★ Shenley
Kent
★ Lenham
★ Wateringbury
Leicestershire
★ Barrow-upon-Soar
★ Breedon-on-the-Hill
★ Packington
★ Worthington
Lincolnshire
★ Deeping St James
Merseyside
★ Everton
★ Wavertree
Nottinghamshire
★ Edwinstowe
★ Mansfield Woodhouse
★
★ Tuxford
Oxfordshire
★ Stonesfield
★ Wheatley
Somerset
★ Castle Cary
★ Kingsbury Episcopi
★ Monkton Combe
Staffordshire
★ Alton
★ Gnosall
Suffolk
★ Sproughton
★ Woolpit
Surrey
★ Charlwood
★ Ewell
★ Lingfield
Wiltshire
★ Bradford-on-Avon
★ Bromham
★ Lacock
★ Steeple Ashton
★ Shrewton
★ Trowbridge
Yorkshire
★ Oswaldkirk
★ Wath-upon-Dearne
★ North Stainley
Wales
Clwyd
★ Ruabon
Flintshire
★ Bagillt
Gwynedd
★ Barmouth
Trivia
★ The crest of Everton Football Club features a roundhouse based on Prince Rupert's Tower which still stands on Everton Brow, Liverpool.
★ D. H. Lawrence and his German-born wife Frieda had to report to the lock-up in Wirksworth during the First World War when they lived at Middleton-by-Wirksworth.
★ The shape of the roof over the Castle Cary lock-up is said to have been the inspiration for the design of the modern policeman's helmet.
Notes
# Oxford English Dictionary.
# Kingsley, Charles. The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby.
# The Round House Worthington, Worthington Parish Council Pamphlet, produced by North West Leicestershire District Council.
See also
Bridewell Palace
External links
★ Bagillt Heritage Society
★ Bisley Village Online Website
★ Petersham Pound and Lock-up [1]
★ Smisby Village Online Website
Further reading
★ Shipman, Juliet The Bisley Lock-up: A story of crime and punishment
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