THE CLERKENWELL HOUSE OF DETENTION LONDON

The House of Detention in London was constructed at the site of two previous prisons, Clerkenwell Bridewell for sentenced prisoners and The New Prison for individuals awaiting trial. In 1794 The Bridewell shut its doors and its purposes were taken over by Coldbath Fields Prison in Mount Pleasant, London. The New Prison was totally renovated in 1847 when its name was changed to the House of Detention.

Initially, three storeys high with a web of underground tunnels, it was possibly the most significant and busiest prison in Victorian London. Taking in more than ten thousand prisoners a year. Accepting men, women and children, it was considered to be less strict than a lot of the other prisons at the time. The inmates were permitted to keep their clothes and their hair was not compulsorily cut. Whether the prisoners considered themselves to be lucky is anyone’s guess as they passed underneath a gruesome mock-up head suspended on the gates of the prison, ‘symbolising criminal despair.’

In December 1867, the House of Detention exercise yard was the focus of a gunpowder blast instigated by associates of the Fenian Society in an effort to help the escape of Ricard O’Sullivan Burke, who was an arms provider to the Fenians. The explosion killed twelve bystanders and injured one hundred and twenty in Corporation Row. The incident became known as the ‘Clerkenwell Outrage.’ The attack was a calamitous affair, and no inmates escaped from the prison. The Fenians were not exactly criminal masterminds, they even borrowed matches for the blast from children standing outside the prison. Some of the terrorists accountable were executed. Michael Barrett became the last person to be executed publicly outside the gates of Newgate Prison. Public hangings were then banned just three days after Michael Barrett died when Parliament approved the Capital Punishment Amendment Act of 1868.

in 1890 the demolition of the prison took place and the site was then used for the building of the Hugh Myddelton School. The school was opened in December 1893 by the Prince of Wales. This was the first time the School Board had been given the distinction of a royal opening for one of its institutions. It was an honour equal to the school’s standing as the largest and most costly school they had built. When built, it was thought it was an act of public exorcism of the site, previously occupied by the prison. The school was massive and there were enough places for eight hundred infants, six hundred boys and six hundred girls. The foundations of the prison remained on the site when the school was built. The location of the foundations determined the outline of the school’s rooms. For instance, the width of the assembly halls was determined by the octagonal shape of the prison’s blocks.

After the closure of Hugh Myddelton School in 1971, the buildings became part of the Kingsway Princeton College. In 1999, the school was sold to Persimmon Homes and transformed into apartments and offices. They were marketed under the name ‘1892’, the date that’s on the School Board’s plaque on the main building. It’s now called Kingsway Place. The nine thousand square feet of vaults underneath, dating from the prison, are now known as the ‘Clerkenwell Catacombs.’ They were reopened as air-raid shelters during WW11, and are sometimes opened, for example throughout Clerkenwell Design Week. The large cells and the vaults underneath have been kept, and are worth visiting on the occasions they are open to the public. They are mostly used now for film settings and product promotions, but there are open days. The address is Sans Walk EC1.

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