Description

HELSTON

631-1/5/226 SHUTE HILL
04-JUN-87 (Southwest side)
OLD TOWN PRISON AND ATTACHED COURTYARD
WALLS

(Formerly listed as:
SHUTE HILL
OLD TOWN PRISON INCLUDING WALL ADJOINI
NG NORTH EAST AND SOUTH WEST)

GV II

Prison, first floor now used as flats. 1835 datestone. By
Henry Penberthy. Granite ashlar with plinth, ground-floor
impost string to round arches; mid-floor string (chiselled
away at the front) and flat arches to 1st floor; asbestos
slate roof with red brick end stacks. Plan: ground floor has 8
cells back to back behind arcaded passage at front and rear
and passage on the right; right-hand cells only are heated.
Arcades lead into small enclosed yards except to front right
where walls have been removed. Left-hand yard at front has 2
earth closets and steps up to 1st floor, probably originally
the warden's quarters. Extending to the north west are the former exercise walls within which have been constructed ranges of garages [garages not of special interest and not included].
2 storeys; regular 4-window range. Late C19 four-pane horned
sashes; doorway with C20 door left of centre. Ground floor has
4 open arches behind which is passage and lime-washed cell
walls with original studded door and barred window to each
cell. Rear is similar but with no 1st-floor doorway. Ends have
rusticated quoins, the north-west gable with recessed date
panel.
INTERIOR: inside the arcades, and inside the lime-washed
cells, the floors are granite setts, the granite ceilings are
supported on iron beams; small iron grates to 2 cells. 1st
floor not inspected.
Subsidiary features: tall rubble courtyard walls with dressed
granite quoins and copings with coping ramped up to eaves of
prison on left; dressed granite piers to surviving front gate
on the left. Extending to the north west is the former exercise yard enclosed by granite ashlar and rubble walls within which are ranges of garages [not included]; the ground level of the exercise yard has been raised and the wall at the north west end and at the south east corner breached.
History: in 1834 Helston Prison Committee had plans submitted
by Henry Penberthy for a prison. It was designed to house male
and female prisoners, a working men's ward and 2 cells for
solitary confinement. It was built at a cost of î720.
Historically significant as a rare and complete surviving
example of a small early C19 prison.

Listing NGR: SW6619527554

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26503987

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)