For centuries, Newgate Prison was a London landmark and almost a synonym for incarceration. It stood on the site of a gate in the Roman Wall for more that 700 years. It was located just to the south of the equally old St. Bartholomew's Hospital, at the corner of today's Newgate Street and Old Bailey. The first Newgate Prison was built in 1188 and looked something like this:
It was rebuilt several times, including by Christopher Wren (who else?) after the Great Fire of London in 1666. The last version, pictured below, was erected in 1782. It was designed by another prolific architect, George Dance the Younger.
"New" Newgate became the scene of public executions the following year, when they were moved from Tyburn (near today's Marble Arch) to outside the prison gates. The authorities made the move because the traditional processions to Tyburn and the hangings attracted large and boisterous crowds, and sometimes produced riots.
Nevertheless, large crowds also gathered to watch the hangings at Newgate. They often paid large sums for good observation posts. Hawkers sold "confessions" of the condemned as well food and drink to the crowds. Public executions were much like modern sports events, except everyone knew in advance who was going to lose.
That sort of entertainment ended in 1868, when the authorities removed the executions from the public gaze altogether. Henceforth, they took place inside the prison walls. An illustration by French artist Gustave Dore of the prisoners' exercise yard around that time captures the grimness of life in Victorian Newgate.
Newgate closed in 1902 and was demolished. It is now the site of London's Central Criminal Court, which was moved from its earlier location nearby. It has long been known as the Old Bailey after the street it fronts upon. A statue of Justice upon its roof announces its purpose, if not always its results.
Famous prisoners of Newgate included Ben Jonson, Daniel Defoe, alleged pirate Captain William Kidd, Casanova, and William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. Of this group, only Kidd was executed, but he was hanged at Wapping Dock on the River Thames, as was the custom with pirates.
Don't get too excited. Cock Lane was named for the male chicken. But it is a place of considerable interest. It was here that the Great Fire of London of September 1666 was finally stopped, or got tired.
On the eastern end of Cock Lane, at its intersection with Giltspur Street, the Fortune of War pub once stood. It later became a notorious hangout for body snatchers or resurrection men who supplied fresh corpses to London's anatomists, but that's another story.
After the fire was snuffed out, some civic-minded folk put up a warning on the wall of the pub. They attached a golden cupid-like statue called the Golden Boy of Pye Corner.
The inscription below the statue read: "This Boy is in Memmory [sic] Put up for the late FIRE OF LONDON Ocassion'd by the Sin of Gluttony." I doubt many of London's poor agreed with that assessment.
The pub is no longer there, but the statue and inscription are. You have to look up to see it, because it is placed about fifteen feet above the ground.
At the other end of Cock Lane, a short distance away, is the locale of another fascinating story, that of the Cock Lane Ghost. The ghost allegedly haunted a house here in the 1760's, a century after the Great Fire.
Dr. Samuel Johnson of dictionary fame, exposed the ghost as a fake, alas, but it caused quite a stir and a scandal. The story is too long to relate here, but you can learn about it in a book by Paul Chambers, Cock Lane Ghost: Murder, Sex, and Haunting in Dr. Johnson's London.
If you turn left at this end of Cock Lane, you will quickly arrive at Newgate Street, named for the infamous Newgate Prison which stood nearby. You will pass St. Sepulchre Without Newgate, the largest parish church in the City.
St Sepulchre's bells are the "Bells of Old Bailey," in the famous rhyme "Oranges and Lemons." A special bell was rung on the days when executions took place at the prison, which was pretty often until the late nineteenth century. The execution bell is displayed within the church, which ironically has been the official musicians' church of London for many years.
.
