GLOUCESTER CASTLE
A castle (fn. 1) was built at Gloucester soon after the
Norman Conquest, 16 houses having been demolished to make way for it. (fn. 2) It was placed in the
custody of the sheriff of the county, Roger of
Gloucester. That castle, distinguished as the old
castle in 1143, (fn. 3) probably had as its motte the
mound called Barbican hill, in the south-west part
of the town at the south end of the later Barbican
Road. Archaeological evidence, however, has led
to the suggestion that the first structure was a
ditched enclosure within the south-west corner of
the old Roman town and that the Barbican hill
motte was a later addition near the end of the 11th
century. (fn. 4)
Before 1112 Walter of Gloucester built a new
castle west of Barbican hill on a former garden of
Gloucester Abbey, overlooking the Severn. (fn. 5) The
hereditary sheriffs held Gloucester castle until
1155. Later it was retained by the Crown, passing
with the borough lordship to the widows of Henry
III and Edward I. Henry III often used it as a
residence, and it played an important role in the
barons' war of the 1260s. (fn. 6) Under the Crown the
castle was the responsibility of the county sheriffs (fn. 7)
and of constables appointed during pleasure or for
life. (fn. 8) The perquisites of the constableship
included Castle Meads, on the opposite bank of
the river from the castle, (fn. 9) and a custom called the
tyne of ale (later castle cowle) which was levied on
the brewers of the town until the mid 16th
century. (fn. 10) Part of the castle was being used as a
gaol by 1185 and it was probably then the official
county gaol, as it certainly was by 1228. (fn. 11)
A chapel in the castle and the offerings made
there belonged to St. Owen's church, presumably
by gift of Walter of Gloucester, and in 1137 were
included in the endowment of Llanthony Priory. (fn. 12)
The priory later exercised full parochial rights in
the castle; (fn. 13) a claim by Gloucester Abbey to those
rights was apparently not pursued after 1197. (fn. 14)
The castle and its defences, together with Barbican hill which was probably maintained as an
outwork, were excluded from the borough boundary in a peninsula of the county. In the postmedieval period the site formed part of the
extraparochial North Hamlet. (fn. 15)
In the mid 13th century, when it had reached
its fullest extent and strength, the castle and its
defences covered c. 8 a. of the south-western
sector of the town. (fn. 16) It was defended on the west
by the Severn and on the other sides by moats, for
most of the circuit a double line. There were three
entrances. The main entrance on the north-east,
leading to the town by way of Castle Lane, had
inner and outer gatehouses and drawbridges over
the moats. On the west a gateway opened on a
bridge across the Severn, defended at its western
end by a brattice; the bridge was rebuilt in 1222,
and again in 1265 after its destruction in the siege
of the previous year. On the south another gateway and drawbridge led to a road to Llanthony
Priory. The curtain wall within the moats
included towers and turrets with a tall tower over
the inner gatehouse on the north-east. Within the
wall were several baileys, one of which was
attached to the office of county sheriff in 1222,
and a vineyard and herb garden. The central
feature was a massive square keep, evidently built
by Walter of Gloucester in the early 12th century;
it was heightened in the 1230s. A chapel adjoined
the keep and was probably contemporary with it.
The other buildings, most of them built in the
1240s and 1250s for Henry III and his family,
included the king's and the queen's chambers,
each with chapels, a great hall, and a kitchen. All
of those buildings were apparently ranged round
the curtain wall.
Although few additions were made to the castle
after the 1260s, the defences were kept in full
repair until the mid 15th century. (fn. 17) According to
later tradition it was in Richard III's reign that
the castle ceased to be maintained as a fortress,
continuing in use later only as the county gaol. (fn. 18)
The office of gaoler had become attached to the
constableship by the late 14th century, (fn. 19) and in
the post-medieval period the constable, who held
for life by letters patent and had custody of all of
the castle buildings, usually sublet his rights to
deputies, who acted as, or appointed, gaolers. In
spite of early 16th-century statutes covering
castles used as county gaols, the rights of the
county sheriff in Gloucester castle remained
vague and undefined, and in the late 17th century
the constable claimed that the sheriff might house
prisoners there only by agreement with him. In
1672, following a lawsuit, the sheriff established
his right to use the inner yards and surviving
buildings for the gaol, (fn. 20) and the constable, though
his patents still included the whole site, was later
required to grant leases of those parts to the
county. From 1712 to 1810 the constableship was
held by the Hyett family, tenants of Marybone
House which adjoined the castle grounds on the
north-east side. (fn. 21)
Parts of the castle buildings were demolished in
1489 and the stone used for road repairs. (fn. 22) In 1529
the city corporation was allowed to take stone
from the castle for building the new Boothall, on
condition that it left enough for repairs to the
gaol, (fn. 23) and in the 1590s the corporation used much
stone from the site for road repairs. (fn. 24) By the mid
17th century all the buildings around the curtain
wall had apparently gone, leaving only the keep,
used as the gaol, and the main gatehouse
standing. Most of the wall itself was removed in
the 1630s and 1640s, the stone being sold by the
deputy constable for roadworks or burnt in a
limekiln at the site. New low walls were built to
enclose the gaol area, and c. 1650 the county
authorities, who had temporarily asserted their
rights against the constable, built a brick
bridewell on the north side of the keep. (fn. 25) Thomas
Baskerville, who visited the castle in 1683, said
that the gaol was 'esteemed… the best in England, so that if I were forced to go to prison and
make my choice I would come hither'; the prisoners' ample scope for fresh air and exercise was
mentioned in 1714. The precincts included a
flower garden kept by the gaoler's wife and a
bowling green, used by inhabitants of the city (fn. 26) as
well as by the gaoler and his prisoners. (fn. 27) The
attractions of the area were enhanced in the 1740s
when the constable Benjamin Hyett laid out an
ornamental garden on the castle grounds to the
east and south of the gaol. (fn. 28)
John Howard reported unfavourably on the
county gaol in 1777, and from 1783 a leading
county magistrate Sir George Onesiphorus Paul
promoted its reform and rebuilding on lines advocated by Howard, including the provision of
separate cells. An Act of 1785 empowered the
county magistrates to build a new gaol, and they
acquired for that purpose the central part of the
castle site, buying out the Hyetts' interest. (fn. 29)
Demolition of the castle keep began in 1787, (fn. 30) and
the new gaol, designed by William Blackburn and
completed under the supervision of John
Wheeler, (fn. 31) was finished in 1791. The extensive,
three-storeyed buildings were ranged around
three quadrangles and housed a gaol, penitentiary, and house of correction; in the perimeter
wall on the east side was a gatehouse. (fn. 32) In 1826, to
the designs of John Collingwood, the perimeter
walls were extended eastward to Barbican Road, a
new debtors' prison was built east of the gatehouse of 1791, and a new gatehouse was built in the
north-east part of the wall, opening on the Castle
Lane approach. (fn. 33) In the years 1844–50 a new
convict prison, originally organized on the 'Pentonville' separate system, was built east of the gaol
of 1791. It incorporated the original gatehouse, to
which large three-storey cell-blocks were added
on the north and south, and on the west, linking it
to the old prison, a block containing a chapel. A
treadmill was built south of the old prison. (fn. 34)
Among buildings added later in the mid 19th
century was a governor's house built in the south
perimeter wall facing Commercial Road. (fn. 35)
Figure 17:
Gloucester castle, c. 1710, with Castle Lane leading to Bearland on the north (top) and Barbican hill on the east
In 1878, under the Prisons Act of the previous
year, the buildings passed from the control of the
county magistrates to become H.M. Prison,
Gloucester. (fn. 36) The eastern ranges of the prison of
1791 were demolished in the late 19th century or
the very early 20th, but its western range
remained in use for female prisoners until c. 1915
when the prison became an all-male establishment. The western range was demolished c.
1920, (fn. 37) and in 1921 a terrace of eight houses for
prison officers was being built at the north-west
corner of the site, facing the road along the
riverside and excluded from the secure area by an
alteration in the perimeter wall. (fn. 38) In the years
1985–6 those houses and other buildings on the
west part of the site were cleared and a new
reception and administration block was built
overlooking the road along the riverside. In 1986
the prison of the 1840s, relatively little altered
since it was built, housed prisoners from the area
covered by the Crown courts of Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford, while a small new block east
of it housed a unit for 'special category' prisoners,
opened in 1971. (fn. 39) Of the earlier buildings the
gatehouse of 1826 and the former debtors' prison,
from which the top storey had been removed, still
survived.
In 1816 commissioners for Crown lands sold
some of the old castle grounds outside the walls of
the county prison to John Phillpotts, tenant of
Marybone House under the Hyetts, and Phillpotts apparently also had a grant of the constableship. Those lands included Barbican hill, (fn. 40)
which was levelled c. 1819 (fn. 41) and built over in the
mid 1830s, (fn. 42) and a garden behind Marybone
House, which was sold with the house when it
became the police station in 1858 (fn. 43) and was covered by the new police station and sessions courts
in the 1960s. Castle Gardens, another part of the
castle grounds lying north of the prison, (fn. 44) was
used in the mid 1850s as the site for the militia
barracks (fn. 45) and in the 1970s for a new wing of the
Shire Hall. All the former castle grounds, except
those occupied by the prison, were placed within
the city boundary in 1874, (fn. 46) and the prison was
included in the city in 1896. (fn. 47)