Gaols in the City

Damp, dirty, overcrowded

In the 18th century Leicester had four gaols (the Georgian spelling of jail) on or near Highcross Street. In the late 18th century the visiting philanthropist John Howard found them to be damp, dirty and overcrowded. Inmates might be forced to work on a treadmill or turn a winding machine known as ‘the crank’. Food consisted of oatmeal gruel, bread, meat, potatoes, and cocoa. After Howard’s visit the gaols were rebuilt. In 1791, the County gaol was replaced by a new gaol built to the design of a Mr Moneypenny (said to have become its first inmate as a debtor).

Daniel Lambert

Famously, Daniel Lambert weighed 52 Stone 11lbs (335kg) at the time of his death in 1809. He would have known the gaols of Leicester well as his father was the keeper of the County Bridewell on Blue Boar Lane (Bridewells, or Houses of Correction, were prisons for a variety of minor offences). Daniel took over from his father in 1791 and was recorded as being a kind gaoler, but in 1804 the Bridewell was replaced by a new House of Correction for females, which was added to the gaol on this site. Daniel Lambert then left the service and travelled around the country, establishing an international reputation as a ‘natural curiosity’.

What is left to see?

The Gaol was demolished in 1880 but a small part of one of its walls was left in place and can still be seen today from Highcross Street. Parts of the wall can also be seen in the shop next door and the old foundations extend back to the cellars of neighbouring buildings.

"In the castle style"

The new county Gaol (now HM Prison Leicester), opened in 1828, was a striking castle-like structure designed by county surveyor William Parsons. It didn't impress traveller and writer William Cobbett when he visited this “very fine town” in the 1820s. He said of the new prison “..as if proud of it, the grand portal has little turrets in the castle style….Instead of expressing shame at these indubitable proofs of the horrible increase of misery and crime, they really boast of these “improvements”…. jails and tread-mills and dungeons have now become the most striking edifices in every county in the kingdom.”

Public hangings

Temporary scaffolds were erected outside the main gates of the county gaol for executions, attracting huge crowds. In 1832 James Cook was executed here for murder in front of a crowd of 30,000. He was the last man to have his dead body exhibited in a “gibbet” which was hung at the junction of Saffron Lane and Aylestone Road. Replica gibbet irons can be seen in Leicester Guildhall.

HM Prison Leicester now operates from this site.