Old Town Prison And Attached Courtyard Walls

HELSTON

631-1/5/226 SHUTE HILL 04-JUN-87 (Southwest side) OLD TOWN PRISON AND ATTACHED COURTYARD WALLS

(Formerly listed as: SHUTE HILL OLD TOWN PRISON INCLUDING WALL ADJOINI NG NORTH EAST AND SOUTH WEST)

GV II

Prison, first floor now used as flats. 1835 datestone. By Henry Penberthy. Granite ashlar with plinth, ground-floor impost string to round arches; mid-floor string (chiselled away at the front) and flat arches to 1st floor; asbestos slate roof with red brick end stacks. Plan: ground floor has 8 cells back to back behind arcaded passage at front and rear and passage on the right; right-hand cells only are heated. Arcades lead into small enclosed yards except to front right where walls have been removed. Left-hand yard at front has 2 earth closets and steps up to 1st floor, probably originally the warden's quarters. Extending to the north west are the former exercise walls within which have been constructed ranges of garages [garages not of special interest and not included]. 2 storeys; regular 4-window range. Late C19 four-pane horned sashes; doorway with C20 door left of centre. Ground floor has 4 open arches behind which is passage and lime-washed cell walls with original studded door and barred window to each cell. Rear is similar but with no 1st-floor doorway. Ends have rusticated quoins, the north-west gable with recessed date panel. INTERIOR: inside the arcades, and inside the lime-washed cells, the floors are granite setts, the granite ceilings are supported on iron beams; small iron grates to 2 cells. 1st floor not inspected. Subsidiary features: tall rubble courtyard walls with dressed granite quoins and copings with coping ramped up to eaves of prison on left; dressed granite piers to surviving front gate on the left. Extending to the north west is the former exercise yard enclosed by granite ashlar and rubble walls within which are ranges of garages [not included]; the ground level of the exercise yard has been raised and the wall at the north west end and at the south east corner breached. History: in 1834 Helston Prison Committee had plans submitted by Henry Penberthy for a prison. It was designed to house male and female prisoners, a working men's ward and 2 cells for solitary confinement. It was built at a cost of î720. Historically significant as a rare and complete surviving example of a small early C19 prison.

Listing NGR: SW6619527554