The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816

These smaller buildings in each quadrangle were in a court, cut off from the large space which formed the prisoners’ airing-ground by stockade fencing similar to that surrounding the whole quadrangle, the turnkeys’ lodges being immediately behind this fence.  The only exit from the part of the quadrangle occupied by the prisoners was through this court, the gate situated in the inner stockade fence being between the two turnkeys’ lodges, facing another in the main fence of the square, which opened into the road between the quadrangles.  There were in each quadrangle three wells, two in the airing-courts near the caserns, and one in the enclosed space in which were the accessory buildings.

In the south-western quadrangle, in addition to the caserns, the storehouse, and the cooking-house, there was a straw barn, from which, whenever necessary, fresh straw was served out for the prisoners’ palliasses.  In the enclosed court near the turnkeys’ lodges was the black hole, where prisoners were confined for gross offences.  This den of misery contained twelve cells, each secured by bars and padlocks, and had a cramped strongly fenced airing-court in front of it.

The north-eastern quadrangle was mainly given up to the hospital.  Of the four caserns in the early years of the Depot, two, but later three, were fitted up for the reception of the sick and wounded and for the accommodation of the surgeon and assistant surgeons, the matron sempstress and the hospital attendants.  Of the hospital blocks, one was set apart for the officers and other prisoners of similar social status.  In the enclosed court behind the turnkeys’ lodges were the special accessory buildings of the hospital, and in the corner behind the caserns was the mortuary, where, between their death and their burial, were laid the bodies of 1,770 unhappy men whose fate it was to end their captivity in a foreign grave.

In this quadrangle, as shown in Lieut. Macgregor’s plan, was, in the year 1805, erected the surgeon’s house, which was a substantial brick building, with an enclosed garden; this was built in the second period of the war after the Peace of Amiens, about eleven years before the demolition of the barracks.  After the closing of the Depot, when peace was declared in 1814, we find Mr. George Walker the surgeon, on vacating his post, making application for permission to remove the young fruit trees which he had planted in the apparently newly laid-out garden. 15  In each quadrangle a space of about two acres was unoccupied by buildings, and constituted the airing-ground, in which the prisoners spent the greater part of their waking lives.  This outdoor life, from sunrise to sunset, except in bad weather, was enforced by the Prison Regulations.

These airing-courts were bordered by a flag pavement, which enabled the prisoners to use them in any but the worst weather.

Completely surrounding the four quadrangles, and enclosing around them a vacant space, varying in width from 25 to 30 yards opposite the cross roads, to as many feet at the abutting angles of each quadrangle, was the prison wall.  This in the earlier years was a strong stockade fence, and is so represented in the three earlier plans reproduced in the plates; but at a later date it was replaced by the brick wall shown in Macgregor’s plan, and it is described in the auctioneer’s catalogue of the sale, when the prison and its contents were disposed of in September 1816, as “a substantial brick wall measuring 3,740 feet round, and containing 282 rods of brickwork more or less.”  Of this wall, 30 yards are still standing, forming a portion of the garden wall of the house originally occupied by the superintendent.  The auctioneer’s description does not altogether agree with that of the surveyor Mr. Fearnall, who in 1813 reported that it was “very indifferently built, and not of the best materials,” and that much of it was in danger of falling, owing to the excavation at its foot within the enclosure of a ditch.  This ditch, for its full length of nearly three-quarters of a mile, can be traced at the present day, with the deep embrasures shown in the plans, at each of the four prison gates.  It was, at the time the buildings were demolished, about 9 yards wide and 5 feet deep, and it was paved with stone flags; this is supposed to be the “silent walk” of the sentries, excavated in 1809.  An item in the barrack master’s accounts for July in that year is £420 19s. 6d., for the making a walk for the “silent sentries.”  The area of the actual prison enclosed within the wall was in 1816 sold in one lot, and is described in the catalogue as “containing by admeasurement 22 acres, 2 roods, and 14 perches more or less.”

In the boundary wall were four gates, opening on to the ends of the cross streets, which separated the four quadrangles.  The north gate opened into a space at the back of the prison occupied by sheds and other accessories; the east and west gates on roadways which ran between the military barracks and the prison from the Peterborough Road; the south gate was opposite the central main entrance from that road into the Depot.  Later, as shown in Macgregor’s plan, there were, in addition to these four large gates, a door in the south wall adjoining the house of the agent, or superintendent, and another in the north wall, giving admission to a court outside the wall, in which had been erected a separate prison for the boys.

At each gate outside the prison wall was a guard house, a one-storied building fitted with separate rooms for the officers and men of the guard, with cells for prisoners, and with a wide-open shelter, or verandah, in front.

The ground between the boundary wall and the quadrangles was not built upon, but was studded over with the boxes of the sentries, who, with muskets loaded with ball cartridge, day and night patrolled the vacant area, ready to fire on any prisoner attempting to escape across it who did not obey the order to halt.

Beyond the boundary wall of the prison were situated east and west the military barracks.  These comprised at each end three large caserns, similar to those in the prison, built to enclose, with the guard house, the barrack square.  The casern facing the guard house was the officers’ quarters, and was partitioned off into twenty-three separate officers’ rooms, a mess-room, kitchen, and other offices.  Those at either side accommodated the private soldiers; they were divided into ten separate rooms, each with sleeping-berths for sixty men.  There were two smaller buildings for the non-commissioned officers, a large canteen, sutling-house, and various offices.  The whole of these buildings, with the barrack yards, were enclosed by strong stockade fencing.  Outside this fence there was, in the space allotted to the accommodation of the troops, east and west of the prison, a detached house for the field officers, two smaller houses for the staff sergeants, the powder magazine, a fire-engine house, a range of stabling, with stalls for thirty-five horses, 16 rooms for the batmen, a schoolroom, and various other necessary offices and sheds.

The Military Hospital occupied the north-west corner of the forty-two acres; it served for the whole of the troops in both barracks, and was complete in itself.  It was enclosed within a separate stockade fence.

On the south side of the area, between the boundary wall and the Peterborough Road, were the houses of the barrack master, and of the agent (or superintendent).  These are still standing, the former having been purchased, when the prison and barracks were demolished and the site and materials sold, by Captain Kelly (Brevet Major, 1854), the last Brigade-Major.  This officer had, in 1814, married the daughter of Mr. Vise, a surgeon practising in Stilton, 17 and, wishing to settle in the neighbourhood, he purchased the first of the lots into which the freehold was divided, and in which was situated the barrack master’s house, described in the catalogue as “a comfortable house in the cottage stile,” “built of substantial fir carcase-framing and rough weather-boarding on brick footings, and covered with pantiles.”

To this house Major Kelly made considerable additions.  It was occupied by him for forty years.  He died, aged seventy-eight, in 1858. 18  His son Captain J. Kelly succeeded him, and the property has now passed into the hands of Mr. J. A. Herbert, J.P., the present occupant of the house.  It is a useful landmark to those who visit the locality, as with its grounds it occupies the south-east corner of the forty-two acres, which were covered by the prison and barracks, and it forms a useful point from which to start in an attempt to conjure up the Depot as it was at the beginning of the last century.  The first effort of the imagination must be to blot out the charming residence with its well-wooded grounds, and to substitute the bare, treeless (except for one old ash) spot on which stood the “comfortable house in the cottage stile, consisting of one room 20 ft. by 12 ft. 2 in., one ditto 14 ft. 8 in. by 12 ft. 3 in. . . . built of substantial fir carcase-framing and rough weather-boarding on brick footings, and covered with pantiles”—which was what Captain Kelly bought in 1816. 19

Immediately to the west of the barrack master’s house was the straw barn and yard, in which was stored the straw for the beds of the soldiers.  Beyond the barn was a gate, from which a road or street ran across between the prison proper and the east barracks.  Through this gate passed all those who came to attend the market at the east gate of the prison, or on other business.  Beyond this gate was the house of the superintendent, or agent, who was practically the governor of the prison.  The block contained two houses, the second being occupied by other officials.  These houses, like the barrack master’s, remain at the present time where they stood in the twenty years of the prison’s existence, but they have been much altered, and are now surrounded by trees and shrubs, of which the ground was absolutely bare in the days of the prison.

The superintendent’s and the adjoining house were cased with brick in 1816 by the purchaser, Captain Handslip, and were thrown into one house, which is now occupied by Mr. Franey.  In the catalogue of the sale they are described as “two excellent contiguous dwelling-houses, built of substantial fir carcase-framing, and stuccoed, with lead flat top.”  Another range of buildings, 100 feet long, “comprising a large storeroom, coach-house, stable, etc.,” also stood on this south side between the prison wall and the road, while in the centre was the main entrance, with, beyond and to the west of the gate, the south guard house.

On the ground plan are shown four entrances to the depot—three from the Peterborough Road, the centre entrance just mentioned, and two others, one at either end, the roads from which ran between the barracks and the prison.  The fourth entrance was approached from the North Road by a broad drive, crossing the narrow field lying between the prison and the Great North Road, from which it is now, as then, fenced off on either side.  This entrance was exactly opposite the centre of the Western Military Barracks, the main guard facing it.  It was by this western entrance that the stores and provisions were daily brought into the prison, 20 and through it the bodies of those who died were carried to the prison cemetery on the opposite side of the North Road.

Macgregor’s plan shows a paled fence surrounding the forty-two acres and forming the outer boundary of the whole site, but this may have been a mere artistic finish to the plan.

The prison and barracks were excellently planned, although, as a place of safe custody, the former would have been practically useless without the latter.

The guns of the block house commanding the whole prison, the cordon of sentries frequently changed, always alert, ceaselessly pacing their beats within and without the wall, day and night; the strong guard mounted at each gate of the prison, and the large force of military in the two barracks, ready to act on the slightest alarm, constituted a more efficient safeguard against mutiny or escape than would have been afforded had trust been placed in strong stone structures instead of in the wooden walls and buildings which had been so rapidly run up.

In the summer of 1911, when the heat and drought were exceptional, the stone and rubble footings upon which the wooden buildings were erected were, after the first few showers of rain, in many parts of the site, mapped out clearly in brown on a field of green, the grass upon them having withered, so that it could not spring up fresh as it did in the surrounding pastures.  This enabled the author to demonstrate the actual size of the buildings, and to correct many measurements which had been taken from the plans.  It also proved that none of the extant plans were drawn to scale.

These are the dry details taken from actual measurements on the ground, from surveyors’ plans, and similar documents, but we have a word-picture of the effect produced by these wooden buildings and their inhabitants on the mind of an imaginative and emotional boy, who afterwards became one of the most picturesque writers of the middle part of the nineteenth century.  George Borrow’s father was quartered at Norman Cross in 1812–13, and his little boy, not yet in his teens, was moved from Norwich to this place.  Forty years later, in the pages of Lavengro, he thus describes in eloquent language the vivid, if not absolutely accurate picture which the prison had impressed upon his receptive and observant brain.

“And a strange place it was, this Norman Cross, and, at the time of which I am speaking, a sad cross to many a Norman, being what was then styled a French prison, that is, a receptacle for captives made in the French war.  It consisted, if I remember right, of some five or six casernes, very long, and immensely high; each standing isolated from the rest, upon a spot of ground which might average ten acres, and which was fenced round with lofty palisades, the whole being compassed about by a towering wall, beneath which, at intervals, on both sides sentinels were stationed, whilst, outside, upon the field, stood commodious wooden barracks, capable of containing two regiments of infantry, intended to serve as guards upon the captives.  Such was the station or prison at Norman Cross, where some six thousand French and other foreigners, followers of the grand Corsican, were now immured.

“What a strange appearance had those mighty casernes, with their blank blind walls, without windows or grating, and their slanting roofs, out of which, through orifices where the tiles had been removed, would be protruded dozens of grim heads, feasting their prison-sick eyes on the wide expanse of country unfolded from that airy height.  Ah! there was much misery in those casernes; and from those roofs, doubtless, many a wistful look was turned in the direction of lovely France.  Much had the poor inmates to endure, and much to complain of, to the disgrace of England be it said—of England, in general so kind and bountiful.  Rations of carrion meat, and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away, were unworthy entertainment even for the most ruffian enemy, when helpless and a captive; and such, alas! was the fare in these casernes.  And then, those visits, or rather ruthless inroads, called in the slang of the place ‘straw-plait hunts,’ when, in pursuit of a contraband article, which the prisoners, in order to procure themselves a few of the necessaries and comforts of existence, were in the habit of making, red-coated battalions were marched into the prisons, who, with the bayonet’s point, carried havoc and ruin into every poor convenience which ingenious wretchedness had been endeavouring to raise around it; and then the triumphant exit with the miserable booty; and, worst of all, the accursed bonfire, on the barrack parade, of the plait contraband, beneath the view of the glaring eyeballs from those lofty roofs, amidst the hurrahs of the troops, frequently drowned in the curses poured down from above like a tempest-shower, or in the terrific war-whoop of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’”

Another writer records his impression of the Depot, which he visited in 1807.  The quotation is from an article in Notes and Queries, 8th series, vol. x., p. 197, which gives an account of a trip to Peterborough made by the Rev. Robert Forby, vicar of Fincham, and a Mr. G. Miller of the same place.  They started on their tour on the 25th June 1807, and the vicar chronicles his visit to Norman Cross in the following words:

“Pursuing our journey through suffocating clouds of dust, in the evening we reached Stilton, a miserable shabby town, where all we found to admire was some excellent cheese for our supper. 21  Having disposed of our horses at the inn and secured our own lodgings, we walked back a mile or so to Norman Cross to see the barracks for French prisoners, no less than 6,000 of whom are confined here.  It is a fine healthy spot.  Among them there is very little disease; their good looks in general prove the excellent care taken of them.  In particular the boys are kept apart and taught, so that in all probability their captivity is a benefit to them.  Their dexterity in little handicraft, nick-nacks, particularly in making toys of the bones of their meals, will put many pounds into the pockets of several of them.  We were very credibly assured that there are some who will carry away with them £200 or £300.  Their behaviour was not at all impudent or disrespectful as we passed the pallisades within which they are cooped.  Most of them have acquired English enough to chatter very volubly and to cheat adroitly.  They are guarded by two regiments of Militia, one of them the Cambridge; we had the advantage of knowing Captain Pemberton of that regiment, who gave us tea in his luggage-lumbered hut.  The country is under very great obligations to gentlemen of family and fortune who will forego the comforts of home for the miserable inconveniences of barrack service.  We had never seen it before, and have not the least wish to see it again.  It is horrible.  The only privacy of an officer by day or night is in these wretched hovels, in which they must alternately sweat and shiver.  The mess-room is open indeed at all hours.  It is a coffee-room, news room, lounging-room, at all times, as well as that of dinner, to the officers of a regiment.  Between eight and nine o’clock we found two who had outstayed the others; they were boozy and still at their wine, merely perhaps from having nothing to do.  Our friend, who is a man of great good sense and exemplary manners, must be strangely out of his element here.”

The wretched hovels of which Mr. Forby speaks were the rooms in the officers’ barracks, the walls of which were only one thickness of boards.  There were sixty such little rooms, not luxuriously furnished, for at the first day’s sale of the contents of the barracks, on the 18th September 1816, twenty-seven lots of the officers’ furniture, consisting of six Windsor chairs and one deal table, realised for each lot from 9s. to 32s.; for twenty-six lots, each comprising one table and two chairs, the price varied from 2s. to 17s. 6d.; while for sixty lots, consisting of one officer’s shovel, poker, tongs, fender and bellows, the price per lot varied from 1s. to 2s. 6d.  The bellows in each room suggest that the fuel supplied was the peat from the adjoining fens, which was usually burned in the district, and which, although it warmed the thatched cottage with thick walls, would give poor comfort to the shivering officer with only a board between him and the outer air.

The account of the Depot is incomplete without the mention of a detached field, situated a few hundred yards north of the site of the prison, on the opposite, that is the west, side of the Great North Road.  Shortly after the prison was occupied, the lower part of this field was purchased by the Government for a burial place for the prisoners, and was resold in 1816.  To it, during the occupation of the Depot, were carried across the bodies of some 1,750 prisoners, whose fate it was to die within the prison walls.  There is nothing now to distinguish this prison cemetery, except the mounds, called by the inhabitants of the district “The Lows”; it will be dealt with in a further chapter.

It must be borne in mind that the buildings which have been described were originally only intended to be of a temporary character, and that from various causes detailed in the report given in the Appendix, certain portions of the woodwork had perished during the seventeen years of the Depot’s existence before the date of that report.  That document also shows that there was occasional “scamping” by those employed in the work required to maintain the fabrics.  The general excellence and durability of the materials are however proved by the fact that even now, at the end of a century, portions of them are still serving the purposes of cottages, workshops, or farm buildings in the neighbouring towns and villages to which they were transported at the sale in 1816.

Examples in Peterborough include the portion of a casern, already alluded to as purchased by Mr. Ruddle and re-erected at his works—it still forms part of a carpenters’ shop in the extensive works of the firm of John Thompson, contractors, so famous as cathedral restorers; a group of tenements known as Barrack Yard; and two cottages, the latter being one of the turnkeys’ lodges reconstructed.  These cottages are still inhabited, but are clearly destined to be very shortly improved off the face of the earth.  That they were in old days vulgarly called “Bug Hall” gives a hint as to one minor discomfort which the densely packed French prisoners endured in these wooden buildings.  Such was the Depot, which term included the prison, with its various necessary adjuncts, official residences, offices, etc., and the military barracks, complete for a force of two infantry regiments, with hospital, a sutling-house and canteens, the two latter let to contractors at rents respectively of £12 and £10 16s. a month, bringing into the Government the sum of £270 6s. a year.  The Depot was unfortunately under a divided control, the barrack master-general was responsible for the buildings and a barrack master appointed by him resided in a detached house at the Depot.  The “Transport Office” was responsible for the management of the prisoners of war at home and abroad.  The responsibility of the Transport Commissioners included the arrangements for the feeding and the discipline of the prisoners.  The details were left to their representative agent, who also resided in the Depot. 22

The military commander, the brigade-major, of course had control of the troops (usually two Militia regiments) quartered in the barracks, east and west of the prison. 23

As the first portion of the buildings approached completion, it became necessary to make provision beforehand for the reception and maintenance of the prisoners waiting to occupy it, and from the buildings attention must now be directed to the officials and the organisation of the Depot.  To each Depot in the country an agent was appointed, who was at every other prison a post captain in the Royal Navy on full pay; but at Norman Cross in the first instance a departure from this rule was made.  The following extracts from a letter written by the Transport Board to Mr. Delafons on his appointment to the office are of interest as throwing light on the nature of his duties.

“To John Delafons, Esq.

“Sir,

“We direct you to proceed without delay to the prison at Norman Cross, to which you are appointed Agent, and report to us the present state thereof, as well as the time when in your judgement it will be ready for the reception of prisoners of War.

“We have ordered bedding for six thousand prisoners to be sent to Norman Cross as soon as possible, and we expect it will arrive there before the end of this month.

“As you are provided with a list of such articles and utensils as will be necessary for carrying on the service, we direct you to make enquiry at Peterborough respecting the terms on which those articles may be procured at that place; and you are to transmit to us a list of such of them as you may think are to be obtained at more reasonable rates, or of a better quality in London.  We have appointed Mr. Dent, now one of the clerks at Porchester Castle, to be your first Clerk and Interpreter, with a salary of £80 per annum, and have directed him to proceed forthwith to Norman Cross.  We have appointed Michael Brien as one of the Stewards in consequence of your recommendation.  A supply of printed Forms will be sent to you from this Office, and you are to be allowed ten guineas per annum for the stationery.”