The Clerkenwell House of Detention
Clerkenwell and Islington has played a crucial role in the history of crime and punishment in London.
Before that, this site was part of the medieval precinct of St Mary Nunnery which was later sold off during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.
The land was bestowed to one of the King’s closest advisors, the Duke of Norfolk, but for nearly a century passed hands numerous times.
In 1615, the land was acquired by the Middlesex Justices of the Peace, as a county prison.
Originally planned to be built at the bottom of St John’s Street by Smithfield, the “New Prison” or Clerkenwell Bridewell was built on this site. In the early seventeenth century.
It was built to take on the overspill of the City prisons. It was built in a L-shape with a partially enclosed yard, and had a direct path to Clerkenwell Green to New Prison Walk.
In 1663 Just next to it, was built a great building, a large quadrangular workhouse or a union or “corporation” of Middlesex parishes, for able-bodied, blind and paupers.
Unfortunately, more than 50% of the inmates died during that Great Plague of 1665, and the union workhouse before defunct.
In 1679 the Bridewell burnt down, so the prison was moved into the disused workhouse.
In 1700, the building became a alms-house-cum-workhouse-cum-orphanage known as the Quaker Workhouse
Yet, 1685, a second county prison also named the New Prison was built by the south of the workhouse and Bridewell, to accommodate those awaiting trial who couldn’t be accommodated at Newgate Prison. The building was significantly enlarged and rebuilding in 1774-1775.
To the east of the New Prison, William Body set up a pleasure garden called Mulberry Garden in the late eighteenth century. However, by 1800, this ground was used for military drills by the Clerkenwell Association or Clerkenwell Volunteers.
Throughout the 1800’s the workhouse and Bridewell were superseded by the Middlesex County House of Corrections at Coldbath Fields, and fell is to disuse. The buildings were appropriated by the Clerkenwell Volunteers and converted into a drill yard and barracks. As the wars with the French continued, the site was used for military purposes until Napoleon’s defeat in 1815.
It was decided in 1816 that a new prison will be built covering the land of the workhouse, Bridewell and Mulberry Garden. Construction began that summer and was finished by 1818. Much of the fabric on the south of the predecessor was incorporated in to the new building, and much of the New Prison can be seen to this day, especially along the south and the west.
By the 1840’s the New Prison was so overcrowded that there were 30-40 prisoners per room, such rooms were laid out simply by lines drawn on the floor demarcating the differences classes.
A Prison was first built on this site in 1616, and rebuilt again in 1775. This prison was known to many as the New Prison. However, around this period, the larger site was comprise of not just a detention prison for those awaiting trial, but also consisted of an alms-house, bridewell and corporation workhouse for the poor across a union of parishes.
Next to it, was William Body’s Mulberry Garden, a pleasure garden that through the Napoleonic Wars was used by the Clerkenwell Volunteers to drills and even used the former prison site as a barracks.
After Napoleons defeat, it was decided in 1816 a new prison was to built using the site of the workhouse, bridewell and garden.
At this point, there was such a great amount of prisoners, and no longer being able to transport them to America it was essential to provide proper prisons instead of the hulks (disused ships) along the Thames.
“In the 1600s this site held the Clerkenwell Bridewell, built to take the overflow from London’s prisons. A huge workhouse stood beside it, which when later devastated by the Great Plague in 1665, and when the Bridewell burned down the prison moved into that building. Over the next century it became a workhouse, orphanage and even a military drill yard. Finally, in 1816 a new prison was built across the whole site, parts of which still survive, though by the 1840s it was so overcrowded that up to forty people shared a single room.”
It was decided a new short-stay Detention Prison was needed. It was designed by William Moseley, the county surveyor and erected in 1846-1847 by Samuel Grimsdell. This was the new New Prison.
The Clerkenwell House of Detention was influenced by the recently built Pentonville Prison of 1842. It was built in the separate system. The new design consisted of long wings of galleries with single rooms, connected to a loft central hall at the intersection.
Though architecturally, it was rougher than Pentonville, akin to its inspiration, the single cells featured their own toilets, a basin and also a small window. Fresh air was also heated in basement and circulated throughout the rooms. The 1840’s saw significant developments in prisons – these developments were watched globally.
The prison was built in a cruciform layout, the three northern wings were for the male prisoners, whereas the south wing was primarily the administration rooms with the female cells laid out transversely. Between the wings were exercise yards where prisoners would walk in circles, and against the south perimeter wall were an entrance lodge, and residences of for the governor and matron.
Below in the basement were the examining, bathing and fumigating rooms which all new male prisoners would have pass on their way from reception to the individual cells. These underground rooms survived the later demolition and were incorporated into the basement of the Hugh Myddleton School, much of which still accessible to this day, used for photography and filming – including Robert Downey JR’s Sherlock Holmes.
Later additions were added by the surveyor Frederick Pownall, who in the 1860’s extended the number of cells and a built the house [on the corner of Clerkenwell Close and Sans Walk) for the chief warder on the south-west corner of the boundary wall which except for the walls are the only surviving parts above ground of the old prison. You’ll see that no windows face outwards, only a plan and high wall for security, stopping any prisoners from getting in or out, which was probably later useful for when it was the school keeper’s house, stopping any students from bunking off school.
As the Clerkenwell House of Detention was those awaiting trial, it wasn’t as fearsome and severe as the correction prisons. Whilst prisoners were not allowed to communicate with one another, they were allowed such privileges as wearing their own clothes, food to be brought by friends and family, and even allowed work materials to that they can carry out their work whilst in detention.
What is most famous about this site, was an event known by many as the Clerkenwell Outrage. On the 13th December 1867, members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (or Fenians), who wanted separation from the British state, plotted the freeing of two of their compatriots held in the prison, Richard O’ Sullivan Burke and Joseph Casey.
Fenians led by Michael Barrett, wheeled a barrel containing up to 200lbs of gunpowder, up to the northern permitter wall on now Corporation Row and detonated intending to breach the prison’s yard.
Unbeknownst to them, that the authorities had gathered rumours they were coming, so made preparations for O’Sullivan Burke and Casey to secured away from Corporation Row. However, the explosion demolished a 60-section of the wall, and killed 12 people and injuring 120 others in the process. The adjacent houses were destroyed and debris was sent flying over the nearby neighbourhood.
The aftermath led to the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and opposition leader William Gladstone rethinking Irish politics, and also one of the most famous executions.
Michael Barrett was the only one of 8 individuals charged with the bombings, and a great example of him was made. In May 1868, Barrett was publicly hanged outside the Newgate Prison in front of 2000 people, and his was the last public hanging in England.
After the Prison Act of 1877, which meant for the further centralisation of prisons, the Clerkenwell House of Detentions saw a period of decline.
In 1888, the site was acquired by the School Board of London, and demolition began in 1890.
The Hugh Myddleton School, designed by TJ Bailey, was constructed between 1891-1893. It was one of the biggest and most prestigious board schools in London. Some features of the old prison were incorporated such as the basement the chief wardens house, and even a plaque was erected to commemorate the prison.
The school operated until 1971, and until 1999 it became part of the Kingsway Princeton Further Education College. From then, it has been converted into flats and offices.
The history of the Clerkenwell House of Detention offers an almost perfect demonstration of the history of Clerkenwell House of Detention. It’s history began as a religious site, then a prison as crime swelled beyond the confines of early modern London, a centre of radicalisation nearly Clerkenwell Green, and a gentrified middle class early suiting 20th and 21st century Islington.