Prison

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It was reading comments by several of the 'gentlemen' who post on here that got me thinking about locking people up. It certainly was not something in my mind at the time, the thought just grew slowly.  Anyway in days of yore around here they had the right idea what to do with scoundrels! 

This is the old 'lock up,' used for depositing drunks and such troublemakers during the 19th century.  The law regarding beer sales changed in 1830 and public houses, and the troubles that go with them, flourished. The narrow passage here led between two streets, one of which contained four public houses with little to admire.  Three were known to the locals as 'Little Hell,' 'Great Hell,' and 'Damnation,' which may give tend to give a false impression. Pictures of the poverty in the street, none alas online, show that this was not a rich man's area and the impression was clearly right.  That I suppose is why the lock up was placed here, near to home, as it were.  What did they call the fourth pub I wonder?  Softy, perhaps?  An 1860 photo of the eleven police officers does not give an impression of tender loving care and social concern.  Apart from one who looks at least seventy years of age the others convey an impression of 'determination' to accomplish the job, whatever that may require.  There was of course no PC, PC's in those days, and persuasion was at the end of a truncheon. Noticeably only one does not have a beard, yet he does have a moustache. While this was fashionable I suppose before the 'safety razor' it was also practicable.  I suppose the cost of being shaved regularly in a barbers shop was too much for many folk. In some army regiments of the time a moustache was regulation!  

The night accommodation was only sixteen feet long, yet was divided into two cells. Just how many were crushed in there on a Saturday night is not worth pondering. The conditions would be somewhat nifty I suspect, but on the other hand these would for the most part be regulars.  The homes would be pretty shabby for a great many at that time, even in this small town.  While many houses were built as the town flourished it was the middling classes who could afford them, and I doubt they would have used this street for an evening out.

Usage ceased in 1875, probably when radical changes to jails throughout the land reorganised policing. Ne prisons were built under the influence of Jeremy Benthams 'Utilitarianism' philosophy, and his mates Chadwicks eagerness to change society, to save on the rates!  The town got a new police station, attached to a courthouse so the drunks and assorted louts could enjoy a more comfortable night, and then be fined in the morning!  When I was a lad in Edinburgh we had a fear that, if drunk, we may get dumped in the High Street cell kept for that purpose. This was rumoured to be one large cell full of whatever drunk happened to have pushed his luck, and not all of these chaps were as amiable as I, and this could be seen as 'uncomfortable. I am sure Mike S. knows more about that side of things than I do however.  I never used it, because as you know, I'm nice.

This Lock up now stands empty, it appears to have no use whatsoever, however as a listed building it will be kept as part of the town's history.  Just what tourists wish to see, where the drunks were caged!  The Territorial Army used it after the police left, to store ammunition!  I suppose that was in the hope an explosion would remove the rough street and the pubs with it.  However they were swept away some time ago with radical redevelopment and an ultra clean shopping centre happily overcharges all and sundry while complaining about high rates and taxes.  The public houses have gone, as indeed have many others in the town, and those that survive, or have been created in the last few years, make their way to profit based on live football and food and cleanliness.  There are, I am told, still skirmishes in the evening at some however. I am in bed by that time of course.

Braintree Cage

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