VOL. X, NO. 271.] SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1827. [PRICE 2d.
The New Prison, Norwich.
[Illustration: The New Prison, Norwich]
The old gaol in the city of Norwich, in the year 1823, being found no
longer secure, nor according to the new act of parliament, admitting of
sufficient room for the classification of the prisoners, the magistrates
came to a resolution of erecting a new one outside the city, near St.
Giles's gates; the same was accordingly advertised in the Norwich
papers, in which architects were requested to send plans, elevations,
and sections, (in competition,) accompanied with an estimate of the
total expense of the new building. A great number of designs were in
consequence submitted, when the plan sent by Mr. Brown, of Wells-street,
Oxford-street, London, was adjudged to be the best: his plan was
therefore adopted and carried into execution, of which the annexed
engraving is a faithful representation, taken from the tower of St.
Giles's Church, in the city of Norwich. The foundation stone was laid in
1824, and the building finished this year, 1827. It is designed to hold
120 prisoners, besides the necessary turnkeys and servants, and has cost
the city £23,000; the boundary wall is quadrangular, but is cut off at
the junction of the four angles by bastions, thereby giving to the wall
a greater stability; the whole circumference is 1,220 feet, and encloses
an area of one acre, two roods, and thirty-four poles, being nearly one
acre and three quarters of ground.
The bastion at the entrance contains on the ground floor a porter's
room, press room, hot and cold baths, and a room with an oven for the
purpose of purifying foul linen. The upper story contains over the
entrance gate the drop room: on each side are receiving cells, two for
males and two for females, a searching room for the surgeon, and the
prison wardrobe; directly over the drop room on the lead flat is the
place where the more heinous malefactors expiate their crimes. The
bastion on the right hand contains a building, on the ground floor and
in the centre of which is the wash-house and laundry, and in front the
drying ground; at each end of this building are the airing grounds for
the sick prisoners, and on the second floor are the male and female
infirmaries, separated by a strong partition wall. The left hand bastion
contains the millhouse, stable, and a room for the van which takes the
prisoners to the town hall in the assize time; over these three rooms
are the mill chamber and hay-loft. The horizontal wind vane on the roof
of this building is to assist the prisoners when there is not a
sufficiency of them sentenced to the tread-wheels; by shutting the
louvre boards of the arms it then produces employment for the prisoners
when there is no corn in the mill to grind. In the remote bastion are
seen the tread-wheels on which the prisoners are employed in keeping up
a constant retrograde motion, which works the machinery in the millhouse
by means of an iron shaft with universal joints concealed below the
surface of the ground.
Here are four prison wings in the building, the right hand one contains
in one ward common debtors, and in the other unconvicted men felons, not
capital. The second wing on the right contains on one side unconvicted
men felons, and unconvicted women felons for capital offences on the
other. In the first left hand wing there is on the first side the master
debtors, and on the other the court of conscience debtors; the second
wing on the left contains on one side men misdemeanors, and on the other
convicted men felons. There are two day-rooms in each of the four wings,
and four condemned cells and four solitary ones in the back towers;
there is also fourteen airing yards between the four wings, six of which
are sunk three feet below the others, to enable the governor from the
inspection gallery of his house to overlook the tread-wheels, millhouse,
and infirmary; those yards are descended by stone steps, in each there
is a day room, and they are appropriated to the following prisoners,
namely, women debtors, unconvicted women felons, not capital; convicted
women felons, women fines, men fines, and boys for misdemeanors. There
is also a level passage between each two of the sunk yards, one leading
to the infirmary, one to the millhouse, and the other to the
tread-wheels.
In the governor's house there is in the basement story a kitchen,
scullery, and bakehouse, store room, beer-cellar, and coal cellar; on
the ground floor is the governor's office, living room, committee room,
and matron's room; on the second floor are two bedrooms and the lower
part of the chapel; and on the third floor are two bedrooms and the
gallery of the chapel. There are likewise four bridge staircases, one
from each prison wing leading to passages in the governor's house, which
communicates with the chapel; the prisoners are not here able to see
each others' class, as they are separated by fourteen partitions, being
as many as there are yards in the prison, yet the governor and minister
have from their seats a complete view of every person and every part.
Around the governor's house is an enclosed area, and above an inspection
gallery, from which the governor is enabled to see into every part of
the prison. On the towers of the four prison wings there are reservoirs
for containing water, which is thrown up by a pump worked by the
prisoners at the tread-wheel, whenever water is required, and by means
of lead pipes, it is then conveyed to every part of the prison. The
whole gaol is fire-proof, the floors being of stone, and the doors and
windows of iron.
There is certainly a peculiar arrangement in the plan of this gaol not
to be met with in any other in the kingdom; there are four yards between
each of the wings excepting those two in the approach to the governor's
house; the middle yards which are divided by a passage, have, as before
stated, each of them a day-room. The prisoners allotted to these yards
have their sleeping cells in the main wing, to which they are conducted
along a passage, at the end of those upper yards which join the prison
wing; the prisoners are therefore in their passage to and from the
sleeping cells, concealed from the others; should there at any time be
a greater number of prisoners belonging to the ward on the ground floor
than there are sleeping cells they are then taken to the spare cells in
the wards above through a door at the end of the upper yard, and yet
concealed from those classes in the sunk yards. All our prison buildings
hitherto erected are hid from the sight by the high boundary wall that
encloses them, producing nothing interesting to the citizen or the
traveller but a monotonous façade. Mr. Brown has obviated this in the
gaol before us, by having raised towers on the ends of the four wings,
which, with the top of the governor's house, mill, and infirmary, being
seen rising above the boundary wall and entrance front, produces to the
eye of the spectator on approaching the prison a _tout ensemble_ truly
imposing and grand.