EVERY NOW AND then, when touring around England, we have spotted village lock-ups. These were small places with barred doors where prisoners could be held briefly in a cell until more suitable accommodation could be found for them. These miniature jails were:

“… used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to house criminals who were apprehended on suspicion of committing petty crime … Lock-ups were only temporary forms of imprisonment, usually for one or two people, before the local authorities of the day decided how to deal with the offender. Criminals could be released or sent to the closest large town for trial.” (www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/historic-jails-essex-you-can-3227277).

There were probably quite a few parish lock-ups in London, but now most of them have disappeared. However, if you walk along Cannon Lane in Hampstead, you will find one that has been preserved to some extent. It is within the garden wall of the grounds of Cannon Hall, which is where local magistrates held court, A plaque next to its entrance informs that the lock-up was established about 1730. Soon after the creation of the police force in 1829, the lock-house became disused, and prisoners were locked up in the Watch House that stands in Hampstead’s Holly Walk. Today, it seems as if the entrance to the former lock-house, flanked by two barred windows, is now the front door of some kind of residential accommodation.

For more information about Hampstead past and present, why not read my book:https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09R2WRK92