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Monument Types

• GAOL (MEDIEVAL - 1066 AD to 1539 AD (between))

Associated Events

• Evaluation, School House, King's School (Ref: WCM101264)

Full description

Royal, later County, prison; residual function of the royal castle.

A royal prison was first recorded in 1221 when several murderers escaped {1}. The Bishop of Worcester reported on the state of the castle in 1613, when he found a stone tower-like building described as:'a piece of stone building called the gaol wherein some of the prisoners do lie, being about 16 feet square having a dungeon and two rooms over the dungeon one above the other and a little cock loft in the same and a pair of wooden stairs without the said stone buildings to go up into the said upper rooms'. There was a timber-framed gaoler's house 40 yards away. In 1630 the castle was similarly said to contain, apart from the earthworks, an old ruinous house and a stone house for keeping the prisoners.

In 1633 a bridewell, or house of correction, was built a short distance to the east of the gaol. Between 1784 and 1788 the old gaol was extended and improved following an outbreak of gaol fever.

A new prison was built elsewhere, on the Castle Street site, in 1808 [**date and/or location need correcting] and the last prisoners were transferred from the old county gaol in 1814. The site was bought by the Dean and Chapter and in 1826 the gaol buildings were demolished {2}. 18th and early 19th-century plans show a large, probably double-pile, building called 'The Castle' or the 'Gaoler's House' adjoining the Cathedral Close boundary. The prison courtyard extends out east of it containing a cluster of small features identified on Mainley's plan of 1822 as 'dungeon head' ventilator and window {3} suggesting a subterranean structure, possibly on the site of the tower-like building seen in 1613. Cell blocks extending around a quadrangle south and east of the gaoler's house represent the additions of 1784-88. The bridewell of 1633 is shown on Doharty's map of Worcester as an L-plan building with a north and west wing, and on George Young's site plan of 1784 {4} as a half-H plan building long side onto the site entrance with short cross-wings extending south at both ends. These were extended in 1784-88 to form a second discrete courtyard within the overall prison site. A boundary wall is shown on all cartography defining the southern limit of the gaoler's house yard and bisecting the overall site diagonally, first appearing on Doharty's 1741 map, when a path followed its south side to a detached building later incorporated into the Bridewell extension of the 1780s. Whether this boundary is a castle-period feature (i.e. a former bailey or ward perimeter) is unknown. A round stone tower was discovered when the buildings were demolished in 1826 (WCM 96025) but its reported location within the gaol complex is contradicted by the topography shown in a contemporary illustration {5}.

The site was acquired for the King's School after the latter was reconstituted separately from the Cathedral in 1884, and new school buildings built on the site in 1886-88 {6}. The present main entrance to the school yard remains the same as that to the gaol yard, i.e. alongside the precinct boundary off Severn Street.

**robbed foundations in Napthan WB - add this (and others?) as associated events
**need to check all refs and correct / complete nos 3 & 6

Sources and further reading

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