The Gaol

The buildings of the Old Gaol

The Old Gaol of Downpatrick, now Down County Museum, was built under the supervision of the Marquis of Downshire, the Earl of Hillsborough, the Hon Edward Ward and Charles Lilly, architect, between 1789 and 1796. The prison complex covers one acre and contains three main structures. These comprise a Cell Block to the rear, a central Governor's Residence and two gatehouses flanking the main entrance, all set within a high perimeter wall.

Phase 1 of the restoration - The Gatehouse

The Gatehouse today

The Governor's Residence housed chapels, stores, debtor's cells and rooms for use by the gaol staff. An inscribed stone inserted behind the front entrance of the Governor's Residence bears the initials MI and the date 1794, and may have been carved by one of the masons who worked on the building.

Phase 2 - The Governor's Residence 1985

The Governor's Residence

The buildings of the Old Gaol appear on a map of 1833, reproduced for the Downpatrick edition of the Irish Historic Town Atlas series. The Old Gaol is known to have had a treadmill by 1823, possibly located at the rear of the complex, and a number of exercise yards and courtyards surrounded the main buildings. A scholarly account of the use of the Old Gaol as a prison between 1796 and 1830 is provided by Caroline Windrum in her article 'The provision and practise of prison reform in Co. Down 1745-1894', published in Down History and Society (ed. Lindsay Proudfoot).

Phase 3 - The Cell Block 1982

The Cell Block today

In January 1831 the Old Gaol's prisoners were transferred to the New Gaol, which was built on the former common behind the courthouse, and is also shown on the map of 1833 (see article in Down Survey 2001 for museum collections relating to the New Gaol).

In 1832 the Old Gaol was used as a temporary cholera hospital, and in the same year it passed into private hands. By 1833 it is clear that the east wall of the Old Gaol had been dismantled and shifted to the west in order to accommodate a road between the Old Gaol and the courthouse. By 1838, the Old Gaol had become an infantry barrack, and it is recorded as having this function in 1859 and 1901, when a hand ball alley was also recorded on the site. Part of this alley still survives at the south-west corner of the site, where a layer of Roman cement on the interior of the perimeter wall shows its location.

The South Down Militia used the site as a barrack in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century, and the Royal Irish Rifles are also known to have used the site during the First World War. The well-defended site was again used by the Welsh Fusiliers and U.S. Forces during the Second World War. Evidence of huts constructed for occupying U.S. troops still survives on the west perimeter wall below the remains of the hand ball alley. A newly arrived GI Stands guard at the Old Gaol next to the remains of the huts built for them late in the Second World War.

Important features of the Old Gaol still survive today, including original cells, doors and fittings, preserved on the ground floor of the three-storey Cell Block. Original roofing slates from the Cell Block also survive in the collections and are scheduled to be placed on display inside the entrance to the building. Most of the original window bars were removed by John Saul after the closure of the Old Gaol, and the chiselled grooves still survive as evidence of their removal from the Governor's Residence.

A reconstructed image of the Old Gaol as it might have appeared during its use as a prison has been painted by Nigel Hughes in 1992 and donated to the Museum. An enlarged image can be seen in the Museum's entrance vestibule in the west gatehouse. Click here to view this painting.

The site has been progressively restored over a period of 20 years in order to show how the buildings may have appeared externally in the late eighteenth century. However, new ground floor galleries have been added to the Cell Block and, with the exception of the cells, the building interiors have been adapted for modern museum use.

Former use of the site
When the site was first assessed in 1980 with a view to its suitability as a possible headquarters for the Down County Museum, as proposed in the Malcolm Report of 1978, it was derelict. For many years parts of the site had been used as primitive accommodation for various activities such as furniture auctions, Christmas turkey rearing, Girl Guide rooms, typing classes, postal sorting, an Ordnance Survey local office, PSV test centre and a butcher's fridge, to name only a few. By 1980 it was being used only as a store for DOE Roads Service, and to garage the Down High School minibus.

Condition of the buildings
The structure of the core buildings was sound, although all the floors were either unsafe or non-existent; all roofs, chimneys, windows, doors and staircases required replacement, as did much of the cut stone. In addition there had been major accretions to the original buildings over many years, mostly exterior, but also interior.

Planning the restoration
From the outset, it was envisaged that the site would be restored for use as a modern museum. The staging of the development had advantages as well as disadvantages. It allowed thinking to mature in the light of a very thorough understanding of the nature of the buildings.

Principles of restoration
Leaving aside all the other plans which had to run in parallel, certain simple principles in relation to building conservation were adopted, in conjunction with the architects.

The requirement for the building was to house a modern county museum, not simply to restore it as an eighteenth century gaol. Even if the latter had been an option, too many of the interior courtyard divisions, and internal cells, had already been removed to make this a realistic option.

Nevertheless the evidence showed that the core buildings represented the most complete surviving Irish county gaol of its type and period, and one which might possibly be of significance in the history of prison architecture in a European context. In addition, the nature, position, and appearance of the site was recognised as a major asset, and artefact, for the museum.

Put briefly, the original buildings were to be preserved and restored to their original exterior appearance, allowing the visitor to get an impression of their purpose, and the progression of function from front to back.

The only part of the obvious 'gaol' interior which survived unaltered was the ground floor of the Cell Block. This was to be restored as it had been built, to be used as an authentic artefact giving an impression of the original function of the building. The introduction of a lift shaft was to be concealed entirely from the view of any visitor's exterior impression of the original buildings.

Original exterior cut stone window and door cases were restored, and later openings refilled, with minor exceptions which did not affect the principle or the aesthetics. Care was taken with the conservation of original window bars and cell doors, and the undisguised replication of accurate replacements where the originals were missing. The original pedestrian doorways on either side of the main entrance from the Mall, which had been walled up for many years, were reopened.

All the surviving brick vaulting was preserved as part of the basic interest of the building. This included the original eighteenth century arch carrying the entrance steps to the Governor's House, and the replacement of a small section of vaulting through which a staircase had been broken in what is now the exhibitions studio. The vaulting and associated features in the Cell Block were also conserved, not only for themselves but as an interesting illustration of how, in a prison, vaulting was not only used to carry heavy floors above ground level, but also served as a security measure expressed in the architecture.

Removal of recent additions
Two Nissen huts were removed from the courtyard and a large twentieth-century brick building in the south west corner of the courtyard, together with its thick concrete foundation, was demolished. The ramshackle butcher's building at the south east corner was also removed, as was the small red-brick building on what is now the raised garden, and which had suffered bomb damage in the 1970s. The space between the two projecting wings of the Cell Block had been infilled in at least two stages in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and this accretion was removed in order to reveal the original form of the building.

The courtyards
The original surface of the courtyards was mainly gravel with some stone sections, including stone setts at the entrance. For practical purposes extensive gravel could not be used for the modern building but, in the end, a compromise was reached whereby much of the courtyard was covered with concrete which was carefully washed before it hardened in order to reveal its gravel component on the surface. Other areas of the courtyard were progressively surfaced with square setts, and salvaged stone paving was used for emphasis of particular areas to assist circulation and orientation.

Preserving the original structures
All this action was directed towards respecting the integrity of the original buildings and preserving the historical information contained within their structure. It was also meant to produce a visual environment where the visitor would, as far as possible, see only the original structural buildings on the site, and therefore be helped to understand its functional and architectural logic. As it now stands, the only modern exterior building work which is visible to the visitor is the front of the galleries in the north eastern corner of the courtyard (a rebuilding of a former covered area), and the wall which separates the raised garden from the rear service yard (also a rebuilding of a former wall). The only other building which does not date from the eighteenth century is the nineteenth century coach house which has been retained as the entrance to the Cell Block area. In accordance with best practice in conservation the original buildings were painted to simulate the original lime-wash with which they would have been covered.

The perimeter walls
By 1980 the only perimeter wall which survived in its entirety was the south western one, next to the Judges' Lodgings. The front wall had been truncated when the road between the old gaol and the Courthouse was built in the nineteenth century (after 1830). The measure of this can be seen in the fragmentary remains of the blind arch at its east end. The side wall running along Mount Crescent was also rebuilt as a consequence of the insertion of the road. The raised ground level between the Cell Block and Mount Crescent, and at the present garden in the rear courtyard, also seem to date from this period. Both the rear and side walls at the northern corner of the site had deteriorated badly by the time the Council acquired the site.

The front wall was repointed first, paying careful attention to the appropriateness of the mix. Thankfully, the rare Irish Alpine, which is such a feature of the stone walls in the immediate area, quickly re-established itself, as it would not be able to do on most modern walls. Other parts of the perimeter wall have subsequently received attention. Because of the nature of the walls, built of stone and packed with earth and rubble, special measures of various kinds have been required to exclude damp in any area where they form part of a building interior.

Some alterations or additions to the walls have been retained, which help to tell the story of the building. Among several other features, these include the infilled doorway above the main entrance, which helps deductions about the period and nature of the early nineteenth century gallows, and the plaster on the south western wall, which survives from the time that the South Down Militia had a handball alley there in the mid-nineteenth century. The rebuilding of the northern corner of the perimeter, out of sight of the public area, allowed for the upgrading of the rear vehicle access from the street, and for the creation of vehicle access to the former prison garden behind the courtyard. The latter has also provided access to the store for carts and farming machinery, now located beneath the Museum tea-room at the rear of the complex.

Photographic record
When restoration and conservation work was in progress, and plaster was stripped from the walls, a myriad of details was revealed about the original construction and subsequent development of the gaol buildings. Realising that these details were potentially of great interest as part of the history of this unique building, and of European prison architecture in general, a detailed photographic record was kept by curatorial staff and successive museum technicians. The continuous activity on the site has, so far, not allowed the significance of this archive of the restoration to be thoroughly examined and developed, but it remains to serve the purpose of its creation.

Some small details, such as the ends of the joists, which held up the execution platform at the main gate, or the piece of cut stone bearing the initials dated 1794, possibly of a stonemason employed in the original building, are visible. However, most of the significant details, such as the positioning of relieving arches, with all their implications, or the method of lining the cells with cut granite blocks in a building which otherwise appeared to have rubble stone walls, are now hidden again behind the plaster.