Lincoln Castle served as a prison from the outset but earlier prison buildings within the bailey have come and gone, leaving no visible trace. The present building dates from 1788, with a Victorian extension designed by W. A. Nicholson and completed in 1848, and it remained in use until the prison was closed in 1878.

The Georgian gaol initially held both debtors and criminals, but in  1848 the felons’ block was replaced with the forbidding Victorian gaol, designed for the separate system, which was supposed to keep the prisoners in almost total isolation from each other, although it was never fully introduced in Lincoln. The intention of the separate system was to prevent ‘the evils of association’ and to encourage rehabilitation, and so the new cells were well-equipped, with toilet, basin, hammock table and stool. The chapel most closely reflects the potentially chilling effect of the separate system; it was ingeniously designed so that each prisoner occupied a seat enclosed by the tall hinged screens. The prisoners filed in one by one, and the warder then locked the screens in place so that no human contact was possible and only the pulpit was visible.*

Prison Congregation – To avoid daily prayers and Sunday service some prisoners pretended to by Roman Catholics or feigned sickness. But for others, attendance at chapel relieved monotony of the day.

The Prison Chaplain found his prison congregation generally well behaved. Some prisoners, however, were caught passing notes or scratching their names on the wooden stalls. The Prison Governor complained that the chapel’s design made it difficult to see what the prisoners were up to. **

*Lincoln Castle guide book – Scala Arts & Heritage Publisher Ltd 2015

**From a sign board in the prison chapel