Monument record 0045200000 - HMP Aylesbury, Bierton Hill

The County Gaol was built in 1845 to replace premises behind County Hall. It provided cells for 250 prisoners, and had a chapel with 274 seats arranged so that prisoners could see the chaplain but not each other (B2).
After 1845 persons capitally convicted at Aylesbury were executed at the prison and the bodies buried in the prison grounds (B4).
Aylesbury Prison was built between 1844-47 using model plans drawn up by Joshua Jebb, who became the first Surveyor General of Prisons in 1844. The architect was Charles James Pierce. It was built as a male local prison with separate female and debtor's wings. A wing was added in 1902 (the State Inebriate Reformatory) (B8).
Buildings report dated Jun 1995 - Sep 1997 held at NMR (B7).
Aylesbury Gaol holds a significant place in the campaign for women’s suffrage. It housed a number of suffragette prisoners arrested during mass demonstrations by the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), a militant suffrage organisation whose members used direct action in support of their campaign for the vote. In March 1912 suffragettes carried out a mass window-smashing raid in London. Holloway Gaol, the usual prison for suffragettes, could not cope with the numbers arrested, so many were sent to Aylesbury. On 5 April, the prisoners began a secret hunger strike which went undetected for several days, and when the authorities found out, hunger strikers were fed by force, although four were released on health grounds. The Aylesbury hunger strike spread to other prisons to become the largest mass hunger strike undertaken by suffragettes, with over eighty prisoners taking part. Aylesbury became the focus for protests against forcible feeding and on 13 April 1912 over 100 protesters marched on the gaol to hold a meeting at the gates. Suffragette prisoners waved handkerchiefs from their cell windows.
The list entry was amended in 2018 as part of the centenary commemorations of the 1918 Representation of the People Act (B5).

In 1843 a Gaol Building Committee approached the architect Joshua Jebb for advice regarding the building of a new gaol in Aylesbury. In November Jebb submitted a design to accommodate 300 prisoners (235 adult males, 25 females, 20 juveniles and 20 debtors). He also recommended James Peirce as architect. In April 1844, the committee requested that Peirce's plan be altered before being sent to the Secretary of State for approval, these included the addition of day rooms. In the event, the wrong set of plans was sent to the Secretary of State and they did not include the alteration approved by the committee. A number of plans of the new gaol are deposited in the Buckinghamshire Record Office. These are similar in their general outlines and they bear a close resemblance to Jebb's general plan of a prison for 250 inmates published in 1845. The Aylesbury plans differ from Jebb's in two main respects: the shape of the central hall and the function of the wings. At Aylesbury, the central block is half-octagonal, not octagonal; and the left-hand single-sided wing was for debtors not juveniles. In a number of respects, Reading county gaol was used as a model for Aylesbury, including, concerning discipline. The decision of the committee was to introduce the separate system for both remand and convicted prisoners. Following disagreements regarding certain aspects of Peirce's design, the Reverend Whitworth Russell, an Inspector of Prisons,was prepared to give the prison its certificate of approval by April 1847. It opened in spring 1847, although not completed until November, providing accommodation for 285 inmates. In 1895-6 Aylesbury became a female convict prison remaining so until 1918. In 1902-05, a State Inebriate Reformatory for women was established. From 1912-1933 part of the former reformatory was used for women undergoing preventative detention. In 1929 the prison was a convict prison and borstal. In 1960 the borstal closed. It now [June 1995] holds young offenders (B7).
HMP Aylesbury has undergone numerous transformations throughout its existence. Originally built between 1844-47 using plans by Joshua Jebb and architect Charles James Peirce, it served as a county gaol. In 1890, it was converted to an adult women’s prison, and by 1909, it had a wing designated as a Borstal Institution for young female offenders. The 1960s saw another shift, with the prison holding young men between the ages of 17 and 21. It was designated a long term Young Offender Institution in 1989. In October 2022, HMP Aylesbury was reclassified as a Category C training prison. Today, it accommodates 402 long-term male prisoners aged 18-40 (B13).
This record includes National Record of the Historic Environment Information provided by Historic England on 4 June 2025 licensed under the Open Government Licence (B14).