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Summary

Former location of a 17th century timber Guildhall building including a place where meat was sold, a gaol and places of punishment, demolished in 1828

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Conservation Area: Newbury Town Centre

Monument Type(s):

• GUILDHALL (Demolished, Jacobean to 19th century - 1611 AD to 1828 AD)
• PILLORY (Jacobean to 19th century - 1611 AD? to 1828 AD?)
• SHAMBLES (Demolished, Jacobean to 19th century - 1611 AD to 1828 AD)
• STOCKS (Jacobean to 19th century - 1611 AD? to 1828 AD?)
• WHIPPING POST (Jacobean to 19th century - 1611 AD? to 1828 AD?)
• GAOL (17th century to 19th century - 1684 AD to 1828 AD)

Full Description

The old Guildhall situated on Market Place was erected in 1611. In 1684 a prison was built on the east side. In the south-west angle of the building there was the pillory and Whipping post. On the north side stood the parish stocks. The upper floor was reached by stairs from the pavement. The ground floor contained butcher's shambles and stalls <1>. The Guildhall was extended in 1760 and was demolished in 1828.

A heavy door taken from the Guildhall prison was re-used in the museum in Newbury at one point in the later 20th century <4>, and the weather vane in the form of a dragon above the west gable of the museum is a copy made in 1829 of the Guildhall's original one.

The caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson painted several versions of the scene of a pillory in Newbury's Market Place, probably in the early 19th century, although the architectural details of the Guildhall were not completely accurate in his watercolours.

The website Prison History <10> indicates that the Town Gaol adjoined the Guildhall but also occupied part of a public house in the Market Place. A separate institution, the Bridewell, existed in the old workhouse in Cheap Street, but by 1830 the two prisons had merged on the Cheap Street site.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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