Old Gaol

The original custodial facility for the Soke of Peterborough was the Abbot's Prison in Long Causeway, which had fallen into decay. The lord paramount, the Marquess of Exeter, was indicted in 1795 for allowing this to happen. It was rebuilt in the late 18th century but was deemed too small and closed in the early 1840s. The proposed layout for the new site on Thorpe Road involved an octagonal outer wall, a rectangular prison building at the centre of the site and an entrance block at the front breaking the outer wall at that point. The complex was designed by William Donthorne in the Norman style, built in stone at a cost of £8,000 and was completed in 1842. The design of the entrance block…