In March 1798 the Belfast Newsletter announced that the County Grand Jury of Down intended to build a new gaol for the County. It was to be modelled according to the recommendations of the penal reformer John Howard. The architect was Charles Lilly who also carried out work on Down Cathedral.
The Gaol opened in 1796. It was hoped that the new building would have none of the overcrowding associated with the old prison system and would be an important tool in the reformation of society. However the 1790s in Ireland were times of economic and political turmoil and the consequent rise in crime soon led to the Gaol being overcrowded and insufficient for the needs of the County.
There were only 18 cells in the Gaol, all of them uniformly small, yet up to 130 prisoners were accommodated at once. They were fed on a diet of potatoes, oatmeal and water, with some bread. The water supply was poor, the cells unheated and unglazed. In 1818 there was a serious outbreak of typhus in the summer, so serious a Gaol infirmary had to be established. Discipline was very bad, breakouts were common with at least three transportees making a successful bid for freedom. In 1804, the turnkey, Owen White, was even sacked for aiding and abetting a large scale rescue of prisoners!
Conditions soon became so bad that a new gaol was planned. This eventually opened in 1830. The old Gaol was then used as barracks for soldiers. The South Down Militia used it for much of the nineteenth century. American and Canadian Servicemen were stationed here during the Second World War. It had a variety of uses in the 1950s, 60s and 70s before falling into dereliction. It was rescued by Down District Council in 1980 and purchased as a site for the County Museum.
Today visitors to the Museum can walk through the restored buildings of this fine Georgian gaol and see something of the conditions in which prisoners were kept.
Former Use of the Site
When the site was first assessed in 1980 with a view to its suitability as a possible museum, it was derelict. For many years parts of the site had been used as accommodation for various activities such as furniture auctions, Christmas turkey rearing, Girl Guide rooms, typing classes, postal sorting, an Ordnance Survey local office, PSV test centre and a butcher's fridge, to name only a few. By 1980 it was being used only as a store for DOE Roads Service, and to garage the Down High School minibus.
Planning the Restoration
From the requirement for the building was to house a modern county museum, not simply to restore it as an eighteenth century gaol. Even if the latter had been possible, too many of the interior courtyard divisions, and internal cells, had already been removed to make this a realistic option.
Nevertheless the evidence showed that the core buildings represented the most complete surviving Irish county gaol of its type and period.
The only part of the obvious 'gaol' interior which survived unaltered was the ground floor of the cell block. This was to be restored as it had been built, to be used as an authentic artefact. Original exterior cut stone window and door cases were restored, and later openings refilled. The original pedestrian doorways on either side of the main entrance from the Mall, which had been walled up for many years, were reopened. All the surviving brick vaulting was preserved as part of the basic interest of the building. This included the original eighteenth century arch carrying the entrance steps to the Governor's House.
The Courtyards
The original surface of the courtyards was mainly gravel with some stone sections, including stone setts at the entrance. For practical purposes areas of the courtyard were surfaced with square setts.
The Perimeter Walls
By 1980 the only perimeter wall which survived in its entirety was the south western one, next to the Judges' Lodgings. The front wall was repointed first, paying careful attention to the appropriateness of the mix. The rare Irish Alpine, which is such a feature of the stone walls in the immediate area, quickly re-established itself, as it would not be able to do on most modern walls.
