Old Gaol, prison in County Westmeath

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An 'Old Gaol' is depicted standing opposite to the N of the village green on the 1837 ed. of the OS 6-inch map. The market place is in the centre of the village and is of triangular plan, occupied by a small village green. The site of the town gaol lies to the north. A small wayside cross (WM008-097001-) has been inserted into the base of a possible market cross (WM008-097016-) which stood in the the triangular-shaped green. None of the houses in the village have diagnostic pre-1700 architectural features but the masonry of some such as the Gaol, some walls at the rear of houses on the north side of the main street, the single storied shed on the east side of the Green, and the two storied house, now used as a farm outhouse, immediately north of the shed, may be of pre-1700 date. In the absence of detailed masonry studies, however, this remains only a guess. The Gaol is perhaps the best preserved of these buildings. It is built of roughly coursed limestone and lacks jambs or quoins. Only the front facade and short returns of the side walls survive. It was originally rectangular with its long axis aligned east-west. It was at least two storied and has a slight batter at the base. The facade is 9.5m long and the length of the east return is 2.35 m. The facade wall is 1.3m thick and 3-4m high but the west gable is slightly higher. The ground floor was barrel-vaulted with a fireplace in the south wall which was later used as a doorway but is now blocked up. The remains of a spiral stair are present in the south-east corner (Bradley et. al. 1985, 75). Compiled and updated by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 14 April 2015

From the National Monuments Service (Archaeological Survey of Ireland) record WM004-035005

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Picture notes

Olliebailie, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Marathon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Willow, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.5
Oliver Dixon, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Malene Thyssen, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Computer-made picture. It does not show this playground.
Mike Searle, Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
Bill Griffiths, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
James Fergusson, after E. Conwell, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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