The Priory

SK 9298-9398 KIRTON IN LINDSEY QUEEN STREET (east side) 8/25 The Priory - II -

Prison and Sessions House, Kirton Bridewell, now residential home. 1791-4 for the Magistrates for the Division of Lindsey. Dressed limestone with tooled ashlar dressings and slate roof. Classical style frontage. T-shaped on plan: central entrance block 3 bays square, with truncated 2-bay wings to rear. 2 storeys with basement to central block, 3 bays; symmetrical. Stepped plinth; raised quoins. C20 steps to recessed part-glazed door in round-arched entrance in raised surround with keystone. Basement sash to left with glazing bars, blocked window to right. 12-pane sashes in raised surrounds with stone cills. Boldly moulded cornice. Hipped roof. Axial stack. Rear wings, in similar materials, each have a window with heavy wrought-iron grilles in ashlar surrounds. Interior: wing to right contains heavy studded oak prison doors. Kirton Bridewell was largely demolished in late C19 and materials used elsewhere in the town, most notably in the Town Hall. Of the surviving section, the central block originally contained the Gaoler's apartments and Magistrates rooms, and the left and right wings were the male and female sections, with service rooms on the ground floor and cells above. H A Fisher, The History of Kirton in Lindsey, 1981, pp 119, 126.

Listing NGR: SK9357498766