Jedburgh Old Castle Jail
By respected architect Archibald Elliott (Edinburgh), 1823. Model castellated jail built on site of former Jedburgh Castle (demolished 1409). Sham battlements with small towers at angles (entrance in NE tower) enclosing a D-plan site at top of Castle Gate. At centre of site square 2-storey 3-bay Gaoler's House with towers at each corner; flanked by rectangular 2-storey 5-bay cell blocks. Walls enclosing quadrants between blocks serving as exercise yards. Buildings and walls of cream sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings; buildings and fortifications with battlemented parapet and moulded ashlar coping; quadrant walls with plain semi-circular coping. Base course and string courses above ground floor and below parapet. All windows with deep splayed reveals.
Jedburgh old Castle Jail is a fine example of a purpose built early 19th century jail with a complex double walled layout, demonstrating some fine castellated stone detailing, and prominently sited to the head of the town’s main street on the mound of the demolished Jedburgh Castle. It is contemporary and in the same style as the larger Stirling Old Town Jail, although Jedburgh is a more refined plan layout and design.
Jedburgh castle had been demolished by the Scots in 1409 to prevent the English using it during the Border wars, and all that remained was fragments of masonry. The mound on which it stood was largely covered by trees, and was the site of the town gallows. Archibald Elliott, the architect of Edinburgh's Calton Jail, was chosen to design the new jail and by 1834 the Parish Minister John Purves remarked that there was "no more comfortable place of confinement in Scotland.” In 1847 the jail was altered to come into line with the Prison Acts of 1839 which stipulated separate cells. The Bridewell, having been originally built with separate cells anyway, is therefore the least altered part of the complex. Jedburgh jail at one point moved someone to poetry:
I'd rather lie in the belly o' a whale
Than spend a nicht in Jethart Gaol.
Jedburgh Old Castle Jail
By respected architect Archibald Elliott (Edinburgh), 1823. Model castellated jail built on site of former Jedburgh Castle (demolished 1409). Sham battlements with small towers at angles (entrance in NE tower) enclosing a D-plan site at top of Castle Gate. At centre of site square 2-storey 3-bay Gaoler's House with towers at each corner; flanked by rectangular 2-storey 5-bay cell blocks. Walls enclosing quadrants between blocks serving as exercise yards. Buildings and walls of cream sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings; buildings and fortifications with battlemented parapet and moulded ashlar coping; quadrant walls with plain semi-circular coping. Base course and string courses above ground floor and below parapet. All windows with deep splayed reveals.
Jedburgh old Castle Jail is a fine example of a purpose built early 19th century jail with a complex double walled layout, demonstrating some fine castellated stone detailing, and prominently sited to the head of the town’s main street on the mound of the demolished Jedburgh Castle. It is contemporary and in the same style as the larger Stirling Old Town Jail, although Jedburgh is a more refined plan layout and design.
Jedburgh castle had been demolished by the Scots in 1409 to prevent the English using it during the Border wars, and all that remained was fragments of masonry. The mound on which it stood was largely covered by trees, and was the site of the town gallows. Archibald Elliott, the architect of Edinburgh's Calton Jail, was chosen to design the new jail and by 1834 the Parish Minister John Purves remarked that there was "no more comfortable place of confinement in Scotland.” In 1847 the jail was altered to come into line with the Prison Acts of 1839 which stipulated separate cells. The Bridewell, having been originally built with separate cells anyway, is therefore the least altered part of the complex. Jedburgh jail at one point moved someone to poetry:
I'd rather lie in the belly o' a whale
Than spend a nicht in Jethart Gaol.