The Penitentiary, Millbank

An illustration of the view across the Thames to the Penitentiary, Millbank, from the book 'The criminal prisons of London and scenes of prison life' by Henry Mayhew and John Binny. The authors visited the site by boat, travelling from Hungerford Stairs to Vauxhall: "Ahead is Vauxhall bridge, with its open iron work at the sides of the arches, and at its foot, at the back of the dismal Horseferry Road, lies the Millbank prison. This immense yellow-brown mass of brick-work is surrounded by a low wall of the same material, above which is seen a multitude of small squarish windows, and a series of diminutive roofs of slate, like low retreating foreheads. There is a systematic irregularity about the in-and-out aspect of the building, which gives it the appearance of a gigantic puzzle; and altogether the Millbank prison may be said to be one of the most successful realizations, on a large scale, of the ugly in architecture, being an ungainly combination of the mad-house with the fortress style of building...".

The authors go on to note that the original site of the penitentiary was bought from the Marquis of Salisbury, in 1799, for £12,000 "and the building itself, which was commenced in 1812, cost half a million. It is now the general depot for persons under sentence of transportation, or waiting to be drafted to government jails, and is the largest of the London prisons."