Building    From 1151  To 1780

The Clink Prison is the name given to all the prisons that have stood on a number of sites in this vicinity. The first prison in 1127 was a cellar in the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester, and the last was in Deanman's Place (Park Street). Believed to be the oldest prison in England, the Clink took in its first female client in 1246. Protestants and Catholics were held here depending on which religion was uppermost at the time. Little used after the Civil War, it was burnt down in the Gordon Riots and never rebuilt.