The Old Borough of Scarborough Jail is a Grade II listed building in the North Yorkshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 10 January 1985. A Victorian Jail. 1 related planning application.
The Old Borough of Scarborough Jail
- WRENN ID
- rough-stair-torch
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- North Yorkshire
- Constituency
- Scarborough and Whitby MP: Alison Hume (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 10 January 1985
- Type
- Jail
- Address
- The Old Borough of Scarborough Jail, Dean Road, YO12 7QS
- OS grid reference
- TA 036 889
- Coordinates
- 54.28542, -0.4089
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Old Borough of Scarborough Jail was built in 1866 by William Baldwin Stewart and Alexander Taylor. It closed in 1878 and is now used as a council depot. The jail features a stone-faced brick perimeter wall with a slate roof, designed in a Gothic style. The wall is crenellated and includes four turrets and arrow slits. The entrance is also crenellated and machicolated, featuring an elliptical arch with a grotesque corbel between four arrow slits, two on each side. Above the entrance is a circular plaque carved with the seal of the Borough and the inscription: SIGILLVM COMVNE BVRGERSIV.DE SCARDEBVRG.
On either side of the entrance, there are two three-storey turrets with three round-headed sash windows on the ground floor, a pointed two-light window with Y-tracery and transoms on the first floor, and two pointed sash windows on the third floor. The adjacent wall to the left is crenellated and two storeys high, featuring lancet windows arranged in pairs. To the right, there is also a crenellated wall with a gabled door, a three-light pointed sash window on the ground floor, and one and two-light pointed sash windows on the first floor.
The central block of the jail is three storeys high with a three-bay facade, a gabled entrance, and paired six-point sash windows. The stacks are corbelled out on either side of a lancet-lit central gable. The elevation consists of three storeys with ten bays and barred windows, and there is a ventilation shaft above the top-lit central wall. Inside, the original cell fittings and a spiral staircase have been preserved. The complex also includes a hexagonal guard room, which is one storey high with nine-pane sashes, and two ranges of one-storey workshops that have been much altered, along with two auxiliary rectangular stone houses.
Local climate
The Old Borough of Scarborough Jail receives an average of 800 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 56% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 62% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 13 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 88% of listed buildings. Of these, 9 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 1 application
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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