The Old Shire Hall as it currently stands was rebuilt and completed in 1776, in the Palladian style. It was used at the Warwickshire County Court from then until 2011 ...
The current handsome Georgian building in Jury Street stands on a site that had been successively St Peter’s Chapel, the Cross Tavern and an earlier Court House. The surviving Court ...
The former Court House in the centre of Warwick has been splendidly renovated by the Unlocking Warwick organisation and over the summer they are offering free guided tours around the ...
A previous article has described the former Warwick Prison on Cape Road, with a photograph of the Governor’s House that still survives. A little further down Cape Road, on the left just ...
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 14th April 1865. A tumultuous event in world affairs, this act also reached Warwick, and excited much talk and reflection amongst the councillors, media, and ...
The Warwick House of Correction or Bridewell stood on the corner between Saltisford Rock (now Theatre Street) and Bridewell Lane (formerly Wallditch and now Barrack Street); the site is roughly where ...
From the 17th century up until the mid 19th century people were being hanged for stealing as little as 5 shillings in value, this law was later referred to as ...
Quarter Sessions were set up in 1371 to deal with more serious non-capital offences. Trials were held 4 times a year (hence the name) in front of two or more ...
A gaol was built in Warwick in the early 13th century and part of the castle was used as a gaol around 1600. The gaol in Northgate Street where the dreadful ...
The age of criminal responsibility in England has always been low. In the 18th century it was seven years old (and even today it is only 10, whilst in almost ...
The old County Gaol is the building next to Shire Hall, and was here until a new gaol was built at the Cape in 1860. After that part of the ...
The Black Horse Inn of Saltisford in Warwick records the exploits of highwayman Bendigo Mitchell thus: ‘Bendigo Mitchell was an 18th century highwayman. He plied his trade on the Warwick ...
Picture the scene; the year is 1838, autumn is closing in. In the bustling streets of Victorian London we find Samuel Probert, a smith in his late 30s, purchasing a ...
Opening
Come the mid 19th century there were repeated complaints by visiting justices, who remarked that the Warwick gaol on Barrack Street, and the Bridewell were unfit for purpose, suffering from ...
There is a variety of crimes detailed in the Warwickshire County Record Office Quarter Session records. Quarter Session documents can provide a rich source of information. For example, the judicial ...
This old nursery rhyme came to mind when I was busy indexing the Quarter Session Minutes for 1824. At the Easter sessions in Warwick Court House, several men were in ...