THE HOUSE OF DETENTION.
SANS WALK. CLERKENWELL.
A TRULY HAUNTING VENUE
The House of Detention closed its doors to the public in 2000 when Customs and Excise Boarded the place up owing to the managements failure to pay their VAT. The prison had seen years of neglect and on one occasion I was taking a group around when the Police turned up to arrest the manager for fraud! As my group and the police entered through the front door the manager made a quick exit out of the back door. All very strange!
On the day Her Majesty’s Excise Men turned up to close the place down for good I was due to be filming there for the American TV programme “Haunted History.” Unfortunately we found the doors padlocked shut and a sign on them informing us that it was in fact a criminal offence to cross the threshold. We therefore found ourselves in the strange position of actually being locked out of a prison and had to do the filming on the outside!
The excerpt below
appeared in the first edition of my book Walking Haunted London when it
was still possible to visit the labyrinth of wonderfully atmospheric underground
passageways and corridors. In recent years the prison has achieved a posthumous
fame with an appearance in an
episode
of Living TV’s Most Haunted. But, unfortunately, it is now impossible to
pay the place a visit, although I have heard talk in recent months that it going
to re-open as a private party venue.
In 1994 I used to organise ghost hunts in the House of Detention and was present there at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes I’d wander alone through its maze of corridors at 1am in the morning. Although I found it an extremely spooky place, I have to confess that I never actually experienced anything paranormal down there, although I often got the distinct impression that I was not alone. All in all though I found it to be a fantastically atmospheric place and I truly hope that someone will one day buy it up and open it once more to the public.
There
has
been a prison on this site since 1616, although the series of tunnels and
passageways that can be explored date from its last rebuilding in 1844. By the
mid-19th century the House of Detention, as it became known, was used as a
holding prison for those awaiting trial, and an estimated 10,000 people a year
passed through its gates. The prison was demolished in 1890, but an entire
underground section survived and lay undisturbed until the bombs of the Blitz
saw it reopened as an air-raid shelter. After World War II it was again largely
forgotten until, in 1993, it became a museum.
Descend a clanking set of iron stairs and pass under a grim replica of the
grotesque head whose screening
mouth,
sunken eyes and matted hair were meant to symbolise criminal despair. It once
hung prophetically over the main gate of the prison. Step into a sinister
ventilation corridor where the air hangs heavy with the musty smell of damp and
age, and progress slowly through this cavernous world of silent shadows. The
floor beneath your feet is uneven and worn, ice-cold moisture drips from above',
and there is the unnerving feeling that you are being constantly watched.
Many visitors to the
prison have caught sight of a shadowy figure moving
swiftly
through the darkness ahead of them. Others have come back from the cells and
grim passages and asked who the old lady is who seems to be searching for
something, but does not respond when assistance is offered. Managers have lost
count of the number of people who hear the little girl whose heart-rending sobs
reverberate from the inner depths of the jail. 'They genuinely believe that a
lost child is wandering the dank maze of corridors and passageways,' one of them
told me in 1996. Then he added by way of explanation: 'Children were imprisoned
here and the anguish they suffered must have been terrible. Perhaps this little
girl's grief has somehow impregnated the stone and some people are just
sensitive to that sort of thing.' In addition there may be a particular
individual who is very unpleasant and often stalks women who wander alone
through the maze of tunnels.