ONE MOONLIT NIGHT almost 300 years ago, a teenage youth broke out of Folkingham Gaol near Bourne, a dreaded place of incarceration for wrongdoers. He managed to secure a file which he used to saw through the iron bars of his cell and then scaled the wall and leaped over the iron spikes, still wearing his manacles. 

John Thomson was eighteen years old and described as having black hair, a pock-marked face, probably from smallpox, and wearing a red waistcoat and leather breeches, and had been locked up by the magistrates for some petty offence, most likely thieving.  

Once clear of the jail, he took the road into Bourne, stopping in a hedgerow to cut through his irons. Then, on reaching the town, he headed for the shop where he had worked as a cobbler before being imprisoned. He broke in and stole some of the tools of his trade, a leather apron, a pair of new shoes, some leather, a pair of pinchers, five awls, wax and thread, and on leaving spotted a brown coat which he put on over his own. He then headed for Stamford and for the next day or so, toured the streets asking for old shoes to mend to raise money to buy food.  

The date was December 1735. There was no hue and cry over his escape because the police force we have today did not exist, the law being in the hands of parish constables who had no time or inclination to leave their own village on searches such as this. Instead, the prison authorities offered a reward to members of the public for escaped prisoners, in this case ten shillings, but to claim the money the escapee had to be forcibly detained and then delivered to the gaoler at Folkingham. 

Some were captured in this way but it is believed that after being sighted in Stamford, John Thomson just disappeared, a comparatively easy thing to do in early 18th century England when men could roam the countryside doing occasional work without being challenged and perhaps eventually find somewhere to settle and even marry, without their background being revealed. 

He was one of many who escaped from Folkingham which had a bad reputation for the deplorable state in which prisoners were kept with inadequate food, clothing or heating, often crammed into small cells for long periods, a harsh routine eased only by short spells around an exercise yard, with even more humiliating conditions in solitary confinement for those who broke the rules, locked in a dark room with only four small air holes in the door. 

Women too were imprisoned there for offences that seem most unlikely today. In 1813, for instance, Elizabeth Clark, a servant in the house of a local clergyman, was sent there for one month “for ill behaviour and disobeying her master’s lawful orders” while in the same year Sarah Row found herself serving one year’s hard labour “for having a bastard child chargeable to the parish”. 

The women had to endure their punishment but escape was a reasonable proposition for those men who were willing to take the risk of being caught and punished anew. The notices seeking their re-capture which appeared in the local newspaper were the only information the public had. For instance, several prisoners made their escape in 1741 and this is an extract for the appeal:  

“Broke out of Folkingham Gaol at night on January 18th, William Atkinson of Bourne, aged about 52 years, in lightish coloured clothes, a thinnish face, dark lank hair, and about five feet five inches high. William Nichols of Thurlby, aged 17, in a darkish drab coloured coat with yellow metal buttons and with a man on horseback on them, under a little blue coat with metal buttons, in a brown wig, his right leg of a great thickness, a broad voice but slow of speech, about five feet six inches high, a weaver by trade. Whoever brings Atkinson and Nichols to the Keeper of the gaol at Folkingham shall have half a guinea reward, paid by the said Keeper.” 

But the terrible conditions could not continue. Society was slowly changing and improvement was inevitable. John Howard, the philanthropist, visited many gaols including Folkingham where he witnessed the distressing sight of a woman prisoner nursing a child at her breast. She was serving a one-year sentence but the child died while its mother was still in custody.  

Howard vowed to devote himself to prison reform and his investigations led to two Acts of Parliament in 1774 enforcing better conditions for prisoners and greater standards of cleanliness and the Howard League for Penal Reform that was founded in 1866 was named after him. 

The premises at Folkingham, later known as the House of Correction, soon became totally inadequate for their purpose and in 1808, a new building was proposed on the Billingborough Road designed by the architect Bryan Browning who was later responsible for the Town Hall at Bourne, providing accommodation for 70 prisoners and prison officers. Inside there was a chapel and several punishment devices including a hand crank similar to a paddle wheel, a treadmill, a whipping post and stocks capable of holding three miscreants at a time.  

The prison finally shut in 1878 when a local newspaper reported: “This gaol was closed on April 30th. On Saturday last was seen a melancholy sight by those who happened to be travelling on the Billingborough Road. Two gangs of prisoners, handcuffed to two chains, were marched from Folkingham to Billingborough, and thence conveyed by train to Southwell. One of the prisoners having a term of years unexpired was conveyed to London, where he will probably not find his confinement so agreeably relieved by songs from the birds and sweet fragrance from the flowers and fields.” 

The only part of the prison that remains today is the gatehouse and governor's house, now preserved as a tourist attraction at the end of an impressive driveway with wrought iron entrance gates, but converted in recent years by the Landmark Trust for use as a holiday home.