Former Administrative Block And Flanking Screen Walls At Hm Young Offenders' Institute Aylesbury

Former administrative block and flanking screen walls at HM Young Offenders' Institute Aylesbury

This is the administrative block and flanking screen walls with gateways of Aylesbury Prison, built between 1844 and 1847. It was designed by Charles James Peirce as the administrative centre of Joshua Jebb's radial prison. The gateway to the prison and its flanking wings are listed separately.

The building is constructed in red brick with painted brick flanks and ashlar and stucco rendered dressings, with pitched slate roofs. The prison gatehouse leads to a small enclosed yard laid out symmetrically and dominated by the central administrative block. Yards to each side of this block are enclosed by screen walls with gateways. The cell blocks are arranged in a cruciform plan, following Jebb's published 1845 design. Three cell blocks extend from the rear of the central administrative block, with two- and three-storey blocks forming the sides of the enclosed yard, originally housing male debtors on the east side and female prisoners on the west. The former has been demolished and the latter truncated.

The rear upper floor of the E block was originally laid out as a chapel, which remains legible externally, though internally it has been subdivided and is no longer in use.

The central administrative wing is four storeys and basement with a symmetrical three-bay entrance front. The ground floor breaks forward beneath a moulded cornice, with the entrance set slightly forward between pairs of Doric columns with pronounced rectangular blocks. First-floor windows are shallow segmental openings in stepped architraves beneath a deep plat band. The second floor has six-over-six pane sash windows with keyed architraves dropping to the plat band. Small attic-floor windows in eared architraves contain small fixed panes. Stone steps originally led to the entrance, now encased in or replaced by a ramp. A modillion cornice runs across the front elevation and continues as a moulded cornice on the side elevations. The tall chapel windows at the rear of the side elevations have eared architraves extending to the plat band, with blind segmental-headed recessed panels at first-floor level. Twelve-paned ground-floor windows have brick segmental arched heads. Plenum ventilation system vents punctuate the walls. On each side of the E wing, a segmental-headed arch in a screen wall with moulded cornice leads to a sloping enclosed yard.

The former chapel interior retains a steel-truss roof installed after a fire in 1904, replacing the original. A suspended ceiling now bisects the windows, which have shallow eared architraves. No original fittings remain. Former magistrates' rooms, a visiting room, and offices on the ground floor have been refitted, though ground-floor doors retain moulded architraves and some tiled wall surfaces survive.

Aylesbury Prison was constructed as a County Gaol between 1844 and 1847, designed by Joshua Jebb, Surveyor-General of Prisons, and architect Charles James Peirce. Following the 1839 Prisons Act, Jebb was appointed Surveyor-General in 1844 and masterminded a building programme of radial-plan prisons, of which Pentonville (1842) was the first. A committee established in 1841 to rebuild Aylesbury County Gaol in accordance with the new Act experienced delays until Pentonville's completion. The committee was reluctant to adopt the separate system exclusively as envisaged by the Act, preferring to provide dayrooms and associated non-isolated airing yards.

The prison was built to accommodate 285 prisoners: 242 male prisoners, 22 male debtors, and 21 female prisoners. It is set behind a prominent symmetrical road frontage featuring a gatehouse flanked by houses for the prison governor and chaplain (listed Grade II separately).

Until 1900, local prisons outside London housed both men and women. In 1895–96 Aylesbury became the first female convict prison. Between 1902 and 1905, and again a first in the country, the State Inebriate Reformatory for women was added (F and G blocks), and in 1908 the convict prison became the first female borstal, based on American models. By 1912 part of the State Inebriate Reformatory was used for women undergoing preventative detention, and circa 1930 it became integrated into the prison. In 1960 the prison became male-only, and since 1961 the original prison site has housed long-term young offenders.

The circular airing yards, enclosed associated airing yards, the former treadwheel attached to the gable wall of B wing, and a detached wash house to the south of the women's wing have all been demolished.

The former State Inebriate Reformatory buildings (F and G wings) were built in 1902–05 as three-storey, L-shaped blocks in red brick with decorative bands of lighter brick. The reformatory comprised two accommodation blocks, an entrance building, and ranges of offices and officers' quarters. They are architecturally less imposing than the main prison and do not form as cohesive a group as the earlier prison building, though they were specifically designed for the reformatory's purpose.