The lock-up was once a common sight in English towns and villages. The local constable found it useful to have a place where wrongdoers could be detained until the authorities could deal with them and hotheads and drunkards could be locked up until they cooled down. In other words, lock-ups were used in a similar way to the cells at the police station in a time before there was an organized police force.
Cramped and dark, lock-ups fell out of favour when social reformers won better rights for prisoners in the 19th century. Only a few survive, like this 18th-century one at Breedon-on-the-Hill. The tiny, one-room building is all about security. There is a stout door, no windows, and – because tiles or shingles might be removed from inside by an inmate eager to climb out – a solid stone roof. The adjoining wall is part of a secure enclosure or pound, where stray animals could be kept until claimed by their owners.
3 comments:
Apologies for commenting on such an old post but I've only just stumbled on your blog.
I thought lockups were perfectly normal as a child, because Gnosall, the Staffordshire village where I grew up, had one (it's still there, part of the boundary of the old vicarage lands). I remember my mother threatening to put me in it when I was playing up.
Thank you: it's never too late to comment!
I must look out for more lock-ups – they're often beautifully crafted, odd-shaped little buildings.
there was a secret tunnel beneath this lockup which was large enough for friends of the 'offenders' to pass through a little something to 'wet the prisoners whistle', leaving the jailor a little perplexed come morning as to how his detainee still seemed under the influence...
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