Catalogue description GAOLS

This record is held by Royal Berkshire Archives

Details of Q/AG
Reference: Q/AG
Title: GAOLS
Held by: Royal Berkshire Archives, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Publication note:

[See also R.B. Pugh, Imprisonment in Medieval England, Cambridge, 1968; P. Southerton, The Story of a Prison, Reading, 1975].

Administrative / biographical background:

The position of gaols and houses of correction in Berkshire is complicated by the fact that so many of the small boroughs had their own Quarter Sessions and kept some kind of prison. At one time Wallingford Castle served as a state prison and at Windsor Castle there was the 'coole house' or prison for Forest offences. By the 17th century both Reading and Abingdon had gaols or houses of correction, the earliest reference to the setting up of houses of correction being 1586 [see B.R.O., D/EN 01].

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