Woolly says – What a busy few weeks, a big burpday celebration, a prison visit, taking down all the tipis and the final planning for our up and coming trip…I’m exhausted.
The first of the madness started with the big burpday itself as Jo turned 100….oh apparently, she was 60 and just looks 100…. With Zoe arriving nice and early I helped the human open her presents before heading out for a prison visit. This was no ordinary prison visit though as we headed to one of the Uk’s top dark tourism attractions.
Littledean Jail is home to the infamous Crime Through Time collection, based at the gateway to the Royal Forest of Dean, the Jail was designed and built by the Pioneer of Prison Reform Sir George Onesiphorous Paul and leading Prison Architect of his day William Blackburn. As a result of the sudden death of Blackburn it was completed under the supervision of his new brother-in-law, architect William Hobson in 1791.
The Grade II* listed building was built as the most up-to-date, revolutionary House of Correction of its time, and was later seen as the Government’s role model for London’s Pentonville Prison and taken across the seas for the world famous Philadelphian Cherry Hill Penitentiary System in America. It was built for the sum of £1,650. The building was closed as a house of correction in 1854, and sentenced prisoners ceased to be housed there, though it continued to be used for remand prisoners. In 1874 the magistrates’ court was transferred there from Newnham and stayed until 1985, the site was also used as a police station until 1972.
The building was sold to the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group in 1985 for use as a storage and computer centre, before being purchased by the Jones family in September 2003, it is listed as one of the most haunted places in Gloucestershire.
We stood admiring the exterior, with its classical prison look before finding ourselves at a barred gate leading into a cell, I peered through the bars to see models in chains and all sorts of items from the occult.
The prison yard had further items from the occult and after a quick look we admired the metal signage and wondered at some of the implements of torture that were hanging off the walls.
Taking a deep breath, we headed inside to be greeted by the Witchfinder General, Matthew Hopkins (1620 to 12th August 1647) was an English witch-hunter whose career flourished during the English Civil War. He was mainly active in East Anglia and claimed to hold the office of Witchfinder General, although that title was not an official one. The burpday girl got very excited at this, not because of the man known as Witchfinder General but the band with whom she is friends, her cup ran over with joy as the next item was a picture of the said band, this was to be the easy part of the museum as we found out.
It was impossible to get your bearings with memorabilia on the walls, floors and ceilings and more information that we could read in a year, it did seem to fall into sections.
The first of which was all about the KKK, a despised organisation mainly based in America but with branches in the UK, a vast array of the robes they wore and information about them gave me a feeling of dread in my stomach and I was glad to move onwards.
Next came a whole area devoted to world leaders that had committed genocide with graphic pictures to boot.
The next area was slightly easier to cope with and told the story of the SAS and some of its most well known missions including the taking of the hostages in the Iranian embassy in London in 1980. Much to Jo’s joy there was also information and pictures of one of her teen crushes, Lewis Collins, who had trained and qualified with the SAS whilst preparing for a part. Best known for his role of Bodie in The Professionals he had sadly died in 2013.
With a nod to the Pierrepoint family of executioners of Britain
We paused to take in some of the thousands of press clippings about films and TV series before moving into the area housing the former prison cells.
Each of the cells contained information on the notorious killers of the UK, from Ruth Ellis, the last women to be hung in Britain, The Krays, Myra Hindley and Ian Brady the list was extensive.
Charles Bronson, who is still serving time, had pictures he had painted and even his prison garb in his section.
Fred West who had committed suicide before reaching court for his worst crimes was well covered, a local man he had attended the magistrates court in the building many times as a youth for petty crimes. The Great Train Robbers, The Black Panther and the Yorkshire Ripper were all there in the grimiest of ways.
As we arrived at the end of the cells a set of steps led us upwards to take in the boobs and scandalous headlines as well as newspaper reports on the Yew Tree investigation which Jo has followed intently for many years.
Back on the ground floor we found an area with lots of information on the prison and its own history.
A door led us outside and all three of us were glad to escape for a short while form the intense experience, tucked away at the rear was a much smaller room with a display from the film Quadrophenia, a film known for its violence but also for launching the careers of many stars.
A small war shelter sat forlornly in the grounds as did a lovely little VW police car.
Back in we went, a whole room had been dedicated to Hitler and the atrocities he had caused including graphic images from the death camps some of which we had seen on our visit to Auschwitz last year.
Dotted about were cases of police memorabilia from the helmets to jokey figurines as well as information on how the police had been formed by Robert Peel.
Our brains were overloaded with images and information, far too much to take in in one day so having felt that we had seen enough we headed back to normality and a burpday lunch on the river for the ancient one amongst us.
The following day saw the women racing back and forth across the fields to set up a magical Alice in Wonderland party on the riverbank, I of course did my part in counting the sandwiches and checking the quality of the cakes.
A wonderful afternoon of feasting and enjoying the sunshine whilst playing croquet amongst the cow pats ensued enjoyed by all the white rabbits along with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.
With two jam packed days behind us we said our farewells to family and friends and set about taking all things glamping down for the season, as tipi’s emptied and laundry moved into storage I was seriously looking forward to having a few days of rest before picking up the backpacks and heading off on our next adventure.