3-074-780 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of the Convict Prisons: Dartmoor, 1883. '1. Prince Town, Dartmoor, with the Prison. 2. A Granite Quarry on Dartmoor, with Convicts at Work. 3. A View on Dartmoor. 4. Convicts Milking Cows. 5. A Bit of Prince Town. 6. Convict Escaping in Wistman's Wood. 7. Entrance to Dartmoor Prison...Prince Town...is a village of stone-built cottages...in 1806, during the great French War, or that with Napoleon I., an enormous range of buildings was erected here for the reception of French soldiers and sailors, prisoners of war...The buildings are constructed entirely of granite...The external appearance of this vast prison, and of the adjacent village, is shown in our first Illustration; the prison to the left...A farm has been attached to this prison, where some of the convicts work under the eye of armed warders, while others labour in the quarries of granite...Very few attempts of single prisoners to escape have been ultimately successful, owing to the open nature of the surrounding country...[One sketch] represents a fugitive convict trying to hide himself among the foliage and the ferns and ivy of Wistman's Wood...an extraordinary grove of stunted oaks...Other Sketches are those of the farm-hands milking, under military guard'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.