Littledean Jail
| Littledean Jail | |
|
Gloucestershire | |
|---|---|
| |
| Type: | Gaol-house |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SO67321381 |
| Location: | 51°49’19"N, 2°28’32"W |
| Village: | Littledean |
| History | |
| Address: | Oak Way |
| Built 1788 to 1791 | |
| By: | William Blackburn |
| Gaol-house | |
| Information | |
Littledean Jail is a museum in Littledean in the Forest of Dean in the west of Gloucestershire.
The museum fills to old gaol, and it claims to be the biggest crime museum in Britain, and bigger than any in Europe.
History
The gaol was designed and built by William Blackburn, the leading prison architect of his day, and Sir George Onesiphorous Paul, the Pioneer of Prison Reform. However during the project Blackburn died and it was completed under the supervision of his new brother-in-law, architect William Hobson, in 1791.
Under Paul's direction, the prison was built to be the most up-to-date, revolutionary House of Correction of its time, and was later seen as the Government’s role model for London’s Pentonville Prison. The design was also the model for the Philadelphian Cherry Hill Penitentiary System in America.
The building work was started in 1788 by Gabriel Rogers, but as the justices had negotiated a contract price for the work of just £1,650, Rogers went bankrupt with the work incomplete and a London builder, J. Fentiman, was brought in to finish the job.
Today the building is a Grade II* listed building.[1]
