H M Prison Dartmoor: wall enclosing the former marketplace, Princetown, Devon

Summary

Early C19 wall enclosing the south side of the former prisoners of war market place at the centre of Dartmoor Prison.

Description

Wall enclosing the south side of the former market place at the centre of Dartmoor Prison completed in 1809, shortened in the early to mid-C20 and with later repairs.

MATERIALS: granite stone rubble with rounded granite stone copings.

DESCRIPTION: the wall, approximately 20m long and circa 2m high, gently sweeps down at its east end. At its west end it is terminated by a square gate pier topped with a square shaped coping stone, rusticated to the sides.

History

During the American War of Independence (1775-1783) there were a large number of prisoner of war hulks at Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth and during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) a total of 47 hulks were moored at these dockyards. By 1805 the prisoner of war prisons at Norman Cross, Northamptonshire (1796-7, closed in 1816) and Stapleton near Bristol (1779) were full and a growing number of prisoners were held in hulks in Plymouth Harbour, in too close proximity to the arsenals at Plymouth. In response, the Admiralty built Dartmoor Prison in 1806-09 on land leased from the Duchy of Cornwall to designs by the London architect Daniel Asher Alexander (1768-1846).

Works on Dartmoor Prison started in the winter of 1805-6 and the foundation stone was laid on 20 March 1806. The first inmates were not received until 24 May 1809, and by June that year it housed 5000 prisoners of war. As described in Risdon’s Survey of Devon (1811), and illustrated by two views by Samuel Prout (1809 and 1811), and by a survey drawing of the prison of 1847, Dartmoor Prison consisted of five blocks laid out in a radial arrangement around a central market place, in total covering c12ha and surrounded by a double, circular perimeter wall. Internal walls divided the prison into a number of sections. In the central market place prisoners could trade with outside traders. The western part of the prison included an Infirmary and a separate Petty Officer’s Prison. The main entrance of the prison was flanked to the right by the Governor’s House and to the left by the Surgeon’s House. Fresh water was supplied via a reservoir and conduit outside the prison wall opposite the main entrance. From here it was led into the prison to a bathing pool and the privies attached to the prison blocks. The waste water was then led out of the prison on the opposite side, where it was channelled through a small aqueduct onto the moor. The five two storey prison blocks with attics housed up to 500 men. Metal columns on each floor held the sleeping hammocks, with stairs at either end of the building, as shown on the 1847 survey. The attics were meant to be used for exercising but due to overcrowding they were soon used for sleeping in. In the attic of the former chapel block, originally one of the five early prison blocks, the fixings for the hammocks on the roof timbers survive in situ (NMR Record).

In 1812, following the outbreak of the trade wars with America, two blocks were added to house prisoners, and the Petty Officer’s block was converted into a barrack to supplement the large barracks complex south of the prison.

The prison closed in 1816. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Secretary to the Prince of Wales, who had been closely involved with the establishment of the prison and the foundation of Princetown, feared that the closure would lead to the depopulation of the moor. He successfully campaigned for the building of a railway from Plymouth to Princetown, opened in 1827, but this did not lead to major economic development in the area.

In 1850 the prison was re-opened to become a civilian prison to address the contraction in the transportation of prisoners to Australia. Four of the existing seven blocks were used for convicts and two were left as open blocks to house invalid convicts. The other two blocks were gutted and converted into four-storied cell blocks. By 1851 there was accommodation for 1030 inmates at Dartmoor Prison, who mainly undertook the building works, completed in 1853, and additional heavy land reclamation work on the moor.

During the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s a number of alterations were made to the prison by the architect Sir Edmund du Cane (1830-1903). In 1863 he had been appointed Director of Convicts and Inspector of Military Prisons, in 1869 became Surveyor-General of Prisons, Chairman of the Board of Convict Prisons and Inspector-General of Military Prisons, and from 1878 until his retirement in 1895 was Chairman of the Prison Commission for local prisons. His work at Dartmoor Prison includes the former no. V prison block (1871-1873, demolished and replaced by the gymnasium in the late C20), the current D wing (1879-1883) and the current B wing (1880-1885). By 1885 the current F wing had been remodelled internally by Colonel AB McHardy, the then Surveyor of Prisons. By 1895 Dartmoor Prison could accommodate 1303 convicts.

Further rebuilding of the prison took place during the first quarter of the C20. In 1900 another aqueduct was built to the east of the prison and the prison’s outer perimeter wall was strengthened with 18 buttresses in addition to the 25 that had been added in 1897. In 1901 the current E wing was completed to designs by Colonel Alten Beamish, Surveyor of Prisons, followed by the current G wing built in 1901-04/5. The current A wing was built in 1905-8 and C wing in 1912-14/15. A detailed description of Dartmoor Prison, following a number of visits, was published in 1909-10 by RG Alford (Notes on the buildings of English Prisons, vol. 2, pp75-87).

In 1917, following the introduction of the 1916 Home Office Scheme, Dartmoor Prison became one of a number of labour camps in the country holding conscientious objectors. Dartmoor Prison housed around 1000 conscientious objectors, who mainly undertook farm labour or worked in quarries on the Moor. Although the conscientious objectors at Dartmoor Prison were not locked in their cells as in some other labour camps, recent research undertaken by the Imperial War Museum confirms they were generally despised, working conditions were harsh and medical care was generally poor.
After the First World War, Dartmoor became a civilian prison again. In1932 a mutiny took place resulting in extensive fire damage to the administration block in the centre of the prison enclosing the market place to the north-east, and was subsequently demolished (the site now occupied by the modern kitchen block). Around this time the inner perimeter wall had already gone, later to be replaced with a tall metal fence.

The 1945 Prison Commission Report identified the need for new, purpose-built secure prisons and by 1947, when the lease of the site from the Duchy of Cornwall expired, it was hoped Dartmoor Prison could be closed. However, no new prisons opened until the mid-1950s and Dartmoor remained open. The White Paper ‘Penal Practice in a Changing Society’ published in 1959 did result in a major prison building programme but Dartmoor Prison remained open.

In 1990 major prison riots took place in Britain, including at Dartmoor Prison which led to an extensive refurbishment programme in order to improve the prison’s security. Both A and D wing were refurbished, and since then the other wings have been modernised too, except for C wing which was closed in 2002 and retains most of its 1914/15 interior. As part of the modernisation of the prison a network of covered walks was built leading from the kitchen in the centre to the various prison blocks. A modern gymnasium was built on the site of the former no V cell block of 1871-3 by du Cane which in 1953 had been replaced by a nissen hut, thus retaining the radial plan form of the prison.

The rectangular shaped market place at Dartmoor Prison, used by prisoners of war to trade goods, formed part of its 1809 layout, and remains at the heart of its radial plan. It was enclosed by walls along its south-east and north-west sides, and entered via gate that originally stood between the octagonal look-out buildings at its east end. By 1948 the walls to the market place had been shortened, opening up the market place at its west end and a new single storey prison office building had been built against the north-west wall. By 1990 the north-west wall had been removed and replaced by a rectangular-shaped prison building. The remaining section of the wall enclosing the south-east of the former market place has survived.

Reasons for Listing

The early C19 wall enclosing the former marketplace, H M Prison Dartmoor, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: despite later alteration, it remains a good example of an internal early C19 prison wall;
* Historic interest: it dates from the earliest phase of the prison, when used as a Napoleonic prisoners of war prison, and continues to enclose the central open space at the heart of the prison, which functioned as its market place;
* Group value: it forms part of an important and relatively complete group of listed prison buildings and structures, together reflecting the historic development of H M Prison Dartmoor and its distinctive radial plan form as first envisaged in 1806-9.

External Links

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