LOCAL LOCKUPS

During the second phase of the first lockdown, when you could travel by car a few miles for your daily exercise, my wife and I began a series of walks that took us to Ashby de la Zouch. As we approached the weirdly named Drum and Monkey Lane in the village of Packington, we encountered a strange little building set into the roadside wall. Closer inspection revealed that it was the old village lock up or round house, built in the late 18th century and donated to the village by the Countess of Loundoun on whose land it had been constructed. Regular readers will know that there’s nothing that I enjoy more than collecting historic buildings and structures; cathedrals, Eleanor Crosses, Welsh Castles. Perhaps I might find a few more of these to visit. A quick Google persuaded me that this wasn’t going to be possible as there are around 200 of these structures dotted across the length of England. What did intrigue me was the small cluster of six that, for some inexplicable reason, had survived in a small area within a five mile radius of Calke Abbey, including three of Leicestershire’s four remaining buildings. That was surely worth a trip.

My first destination was Worthington, six miles north east of Packington. Set on the junction of two roads in the centre of the village, the brick built, conical structure was easy to find. A helpful plaque explained that the building had been used to house alleged criminals in the days before county police forces came into being. The village constable would confine his suspects in the lock up until he had means of taking them to the nearest justices, most likely in Ashby. Later they became far more regularly used to lock up drunks and hotheads overnight to let them sober up and calm down. My next destination was Breedon on the Hill where the lock up was situated in the centre of the old village that nestles beneath the hill. Half of Breedon’s hill has been quarried away, leaving the church teetering on the edge of a vertical cliff face, a dramatic backdrop to the round house. This building was made of stone with a conical stone roof. The only light the prisoner would have had was from a small grill in the door and so these places of confinement were also known as blind-houses, and also as jugs, kitties, cages and bone-houses.

My first Derbyshire village was Swarkstone. Not only did it take ages to cross and recross the Swarkstone causeway, a long narrow road with passing places over the River Trent, but I failed to find the lock up. In truth, I failed to find Swarkstone. Resorting to the internet, I discovered that the lock up was a pile of stones by a pub, awaiting reconstruction. I abandoned my search and set off for Ticknall. This was another brick construction. It is said that the landlady of the nearby pub, Granny Soar, discovered she had a key that would open the lock up. When a group of revellers were incarcerated there one evening, their wives badgered Eliza to release them. When the constable unlocked the cell the next day, he was quite bewildered to find it empty. The construction of many lock ups in Derbyshire followed a 1790 court order requiring all villages to provide a place to house ne’er-do-wells. The order also suggested that they might be used for vagrants when not filled with villains. My final lock up, in the centre of the small village of Smisby, was a square brick built edifice. After the County Police Act of 1839, police stations with holding cells were constructed around the country and the lock up became redundant. Many became sentry posts for air raid wardens and the Home Guard during World War II or they were used to store weapons.