Castle Cary, Somerset

Round house

Regular readers will have noticed my fascination with lock-ups, those small town or village prisons, generally used to hold miscreants temporarily – either until they sober up or until they can be brought before a magistrate. I suppose what particularly interests me about those small structures is the various ingenious ways in which they are roofed, often with stone in order to make this part of the building as strong and secure as the walls. The roof here is shaped like a bell (or like some kinds of military helmet), and so adds a touch of distinction to the square behind the town hall, where this lock-up has stood since 1779.
 
As usual with this kind of building there are no windows – just small grilles in the lower section of the roof to provide ventilation. It must be dark inside (in some places the lock-up is known as the ‘blind house’, from the lack of fenestration) and uncomfortable. But the round shape, unusual roof, and ball finial give it a touch of visual distinction, so that it acts as a better visual focus from outside than many a larger prison. 

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A friend asks: What’s the reason for all the different shapes that lock-ups seem to have? I think it all starts with the roof. To be really secure, a lock-up needs something stronger than an ordinary roof of wooden rafters and ceramic tiles – any miscreant can push them off and escape. So the tradition began of building these little prisons with solid stone roofs, bonded together with mortar like the walls. There are various ways of making a stone roof, including building a dome, which can be round or octagonal, or constructing a pyramid. And of course these unusual roofs require support from the walls, hence the tendency for lock-ups to be circular, or eight-sided, or even pyramidal in shape.