Brodie Allan, Croom Jane, Davies James O. English Prisons: An Architectural History

English Heritage, 2002. — 308 p.For most of us, the prison is an unfamiliar institution and life 'inside' is beyond our experience. However, more than 60,000 people now live in our gaols, some serving their sentences in buildings with Victorian or more ancient origins. This book is the result of the first systematic written and photographic survey of prisons since the early 20th century. It traces the history of the purpose-built prison and its development over the past 200 years. Over 130 establishments that make up the current prison estate and over 100 former sites with suviving buildings or extensive documentation have been investigated, institutions ranging from medieval castles and military camps to country houses that have been taken over and adapted for penal use. The Prison Service granted the project team unprecedented access to all its establishments, allowing the completion of an archive of more than 5,000 images and 250 research files. A selection of these images and archive information make up this book.