'Old Monastery Gateway, St Albans'

Social History (Museum of St Albans)

2006.5339

Monochrome postcard showing the Abbey Gateway, St Albans with blue and gold town crest and decoration. 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.

T3200 PX 3694.tif

CD 375

Amy Cooke

3) MoStA Archive Room

Heraldic Series.

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

From brown postcard album labelled "St Albans and Victorian" and "Photographic Collection Box 21".

05/08/2005