Monument Type(s):

• PRISON (Mid 18th century to 20th century (post-war) - 1754 AD to 1958 AD?)

Summary

Common prison built by the corporation in 1754 on the site of an "ancient prison and gate" (PRN01765). Improved in early C19th.

Related records

Associated Finds: None recorded

Associated Events

• ESA8004 - 2016 DBA of land at No.9 Tower Street, Ludlow by Border Archaeology (Ref: 16/04032/FUL)

Description

Prison shown as building and yard on N side of Tower Street, on Wood map 1835 <1>

Common prison built by corporation in 1754 on site of an "ancient prison and gate" (PRN01765). Improved in early C19th <2>

CMHTS Record Sheet <3>

CMHTS Report <4>

A photograph from the late 1950s from the collection of Ludlow Museum was submitted to the HER in 2012. This shows the prison, marked as Ludlow Police Station, which was rebuilt in the 18th century by Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. <5>

A supermarket now stands on this site. <5> indicates this replaced the prison/police station there sometime after the late 1950s. <6>

The old medieval Galdeford Tower was demolished in 1764 and was rebuilt under the supervision of the architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. The original plan had been to ‘repair and alter’ the existing Galdeford Tower. However, it was decided that the medieval structure was ‘too ruinous by length of time’ to be fully repaired. Instead, a plan dated June 1764 depicts a building 20ft long and 9ft deep, with thick stone walls and a central partition with a staircase in one corner. However, it is not certain that this was the scheme which was ultimately carried out and a number of plans of schemes for the new prison are held by the Shropshire Archives. ->

-> In his 1777 report into the state of the prisons of England and Wales, John Howard recorded that Ludlow Gaol possessed two vaulted lower rooms, with chimneys, for felons, and two more spacious and airy rooms above, for debtors. This description reflects that given in Bagshaw’s 1851 Directory, which describes Gaolford Tower as possessing ‘four cells for the confinement of prisoners, a day room and an airing yard’. An anonymous 1812 description of the gaol describes the two lower rooms, called ‘dungeons’ as being on the first floor, with two further rooms above, suggesting that there was no cellarage present. From 1836, the town gaol also housed the Ludlow Borough Police Station. A photograph of the E end of Tower Street taken in the 1890s clearly shows the gaol building, constructed of roughly coursed masonry with a central gable (reproduced in report). A brick house shown in this photograph to the E of the gaol was the residence of the Superintendent, built in the mid-late 19th century. The old Town Gaol was demolished in the mid 1970s and a supermarket stood on this site from 1979 according to planning records. <7>

Sources

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