ABSTRACT
It was a large prison, with many courts and passages so like one another] This seems a description of Millbank Prison, Westminster, originally named ‘The Penitentiary’. Founded on the plans of Bentham’s ‘Panopticon, or Inspection House’, it was begun in 1812 and completed in 1821. The largest prison in London, accommodating 1100 prisoners, Millbank served as the depot for transports waiting to go to other prisons. It was laid out in the form of an octagonal wheel enclosing eighteen acres of ground and various ranges of buildings. The corridors were upwards of three miles long and contained cells which were small, dark and below ground level (Timbs 633; Thornbury and Walford 4.8-9).
