Castle Museum, The Female Prison

Castle Museum: The Female Prison

This former prison and yard, now a museum, stands within York's castle precinct. Built between 1780 and 1783 as a prison, it underwent significant alterations with the addition of wings in 1802. A podium and steps were added between 1820 and 1850. In 1938, the building was modified and the yard was roofed over to convert it into a museum.

The original building was designed by Thomas Wilkinson and John Prince, who repeated the facade design of the Court House opposite (now the Crown Courts) designed by John Carr. Nineteenth-century alterations were carried out by Peter Atkinson, senior.

The front elevation is constructed of sandstone ashlar with rendered surfaces inside the portico. The upper storeys at the rear are of red brick in stretcher bond over an altered ground floor. The left wing's inner side is of painted brick while the outer side is cement rendered and incised to resemble ashlar. The right wing is of orange-red brick on its outer side and red brick in English garden wall bond with stone quoins on its inner side. Both wings have ashlar rear elevations with moulded ashlar cornices beneath brick parapets with stone coping. The yard wall was originally of stone but was built up in dark brick in English garden wall bond with flat stone coping.

The front facade comprises two storeys set on a low podium. A pedimented tetrastyle portico in antis is flanked by three-bay ranges and distyle in antis end bays. The portico and end bays are in giant Ionic order and break forward slightly. A broad flight of steps rises to the podium, followed by a second flight to a raised podium before the portico. The central door, of six raised panels, sits within the portico flanked by blind alcoves beneath small-paned lunettes and an arcaded hoodmould on a moulded impost band. At each end of the hood are small twelve-pane fixed lights in moulded surrounds. Additional doors in the returns include one double door of raised panels and one of six flush panels, all within stone architraves with moulded cornice hoods. A guilloche moulding band runs beneath three radial-glazed oculi in moulded surrounds on the first floor. All ground floor windows are round-headed and radial-glazed; those in the end bays are stepped back beneath moulded round arches on moulded imposts. First floor windows in the flanking ranges are of six panes, while those in the end bays are oculi with radial glazing. The guilloche moulding band continues across the facade, running behind attached columns in the end bays. A moulded modillion eaves cornice breaks forward over the portico and end bays, surmounted by a balustraded parapet terminated by pedestal blocks carved with garlands.

The rear elevation has three storeys across seven bays, with three-storey wings projecting at each end. Openings have been largely altered, though a two-storey round-arched staircase window with radial glazing survives at the left end of the first floor. The remaining windows are four-pane sashes on the first floor and squat six-pane sashes on the second floor, all with stone sills and plain lintels. The rear elevation to the right wing, facing the river, has single barred windows on the ground and first floors, tripled on the second floor, with plain lintels and sills. The left return has three storeys with eight windows, either square and barred or unequal nine-pane sashes, with the eaves cornice returned only at the front end. The right return has three storeys with eight windows; those on the second floor have cambered heads.

The interior has been largely altered. On the first floor, staircases at each end of the centre range rise to the adjoining wings, fitted with slim bulbous balusters possibly reused from a former chapel's communion rail.

The prison was purchased by York Corporation in 1934 and modified to house the Kirk Collection of "bygones", opening as the Castle Museum in 1938. The exercise yards at the rear were roofed at this time to form Kirkgate, constructed from re-erected fragments and facades of local buildings.