While in Oxford earlier this month, I had a tour of the Oxford Castle and Prison. I also stayed at the former prison on this site, which is now a hotel. Keep coming back to see my write-up of my stay in the hotel prison. However, Oxford Castle and Prison allows visitors to tour the castle (by guided tour only) and prison where we learned about some of the people who made their prison their home, their crimes, and saw their living arrangements. The castle building itself functioned as the prison, but there was also a Norman motte and bailey style castle at the location before the newer building. Only the hillside and a dungeon area now exists.
The existing building of the castle and prison dates from the 18th century, and next to it is a small mound, which is the site of the Norman castle building, dating from the mid-1000s. It was originally surrounded by a moat.
I first went to check out the site of the former castle, which is up the mound. The walkway winds up the hillside.
There was an old water trough or something built into the side of the wall on the way up and also some views over the new castle and prison buildings.
At the top of the castle is the location marked out of where the former keep or tower was located.
Just beneath this level bit and built into the side is a doorway to a vaulted well chamber, but it was too dark to see inside.
There was a little bit of a view from the top of the mound.
Afterwards, I started the tour of the newer 18th century castle and prison buildings.
The tours of the building is only via guided tour, so visitors must book a time and make sure that they are at the location at that time. The tour guides wear traditional dress, and the tour guide that I had was dressed as a prisoner.
We went into the building and were told about the punishments, such as the prisoners being forced to turn a heavy wheel and hard labour. We were told about this part of the building used as a castle too and shown a room where there were too many prisoners of the Civil War that they had to always stand up and could not lie down. After that, we climbed the stairs to the top of the tower to see the views.
We saw views of the original location of the Norman castle, which is now a mound and saw some of the spires of Oxford.
Afterwards, we headed down into the crypt. Some of the walls were part of an older building on the site. There was a dark tunnel to this location where there are some columns. Apparently, it is haunted.
Afterwards, we were shown the prison rooms and told of some of the crimes. A few different rooms were set up for us to view. In those days, a prisoner had to pay for their own boarding. However, there were different classes of prisoner, and the wealthier prisoners had other benefits and could live in modest comfort.
A basic prison room would have looked like the below with a simple bed and a bucket to use the toilet in.
Later on, more than one prisoner would be confined to a room.
For those who had a little bit of money, they were allowed personal possessions for their comfort.
At the end of the tour are a couple of rooms to learn more about some of the crimes and the prisoners. We were told about the youngest ever prisoner, which was a young girl aged 7 who was playing with an unattended pram on the street and accused of stealing it. Other young people were also jailed, and some of the common crimes included stealing food or money so that their families could eat. There is also a display of some of the mugshots of the criminals as these were documented when photography came into use. The prisoners could be put into hard labour, and sometimes it was pointless activities.
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