"Old Monastery Gateway, St Albans"

Social History (Museum of St Albans)

2006.54861

Monochrome postcard showing St Albans Abbey Gateway viewed from the South with sheep grazing in the foreground and a man sitting on a bench. No postmark. The Abbey Gateway is the only building that remains of the monastery buildings of the Abbey of St Albans. Built in 1365, it was used for many years as a prison. It ceased to be the town gaol in 1867 when a purpose built prison was built on Grimston Road, near the station. It now forms part of St Albans School. In the Gatehouse Prison, offenders were given bread but there was no heating. Passing strangers often heard a pleading voice from within begging them to put alms into an old shoe, which the prisoners let down by string from a window, to enable them to have a fire. Apparently prisoners could escape from the prison by climbing out of a window and jumping on to a tree.

T3087_PX5729.tif

Amy Cooke

3) MoStA Archive Room

No publishers details.

St Albans Abbey Gateway, St Albans, Hertfordshire, UK.

10/07/2006