The Court House

The original custodial facility for the area was Morpeth Castle which was used for incarcerating criminals from at least the early 16th century. When this arrangement became inadequate, the local lord of the manor, Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, made a site on Bridge Street available and a new prison opened there on 30 November 1704. The Bridge Street Prison was refurbished in 1774 but, by the early 19th century, it was also inadequate and it was converted into a private house. The proposed layout for the site on Castle Bank involved an octagonal outer wall, a rectangular prison building at the centre of the site and an entrance block at the front breaking the outer wall at that…