DORSET GAOL AND THE MONMOUTH REBELLION. 143 



on a new site at the bottom of High East Street, adjoining the 

 White Hart. This second gaol was pulled down and rebuilt on 

 the same site in the year 1784. 



To build this third gaol the old Priory, or rather Priory 

 House, contributed its material. Savage says (p. 159) that it 

 was sold to Mr. Tyler, the architect, for the building that is, 

 the rebuilding of the gaol at the bottom of High East Street. 

 The reconstructed prison was only used for nine years, and was 

 then sold in 1793. It was superseded by the predecessor of the 

 present gaol, which is the gaol No. 4 of history. 



There is a well-known print of the exterior of gaol No. 3, 

 called the " Old Jail," and there are several prints of its interior 

 illustrating the visit which George III. paid in 1792, attended by 

 the Queen, the Duke of York, and six Princesses, when he 

 performed an historic act of benevolence in paying the debts of 

 one Pitfield and causing his release after seven years of confine- 

 ment. The fine stone fronts of the houses at the bottom of the 

 street to-day form a memorial of double interest to the natives 

 of Dorchester. These well-squared stones record in part the 

 labours of Monkish hands of the Middle Ages, and some of 

 them must have heard the " sorrowful sighing " of the prisoners 

 as the pestilence of 1685 worked havoc in their midst. 



Of gaol No. i, the oldest one, of Gaol Lane, probably no 

 plan or picture exists. Of gaol No. 2, the one that Judge 

 Jeffreys filled to overflowing, it is possible that we have one little 

 wood-cut in the frontispiece to a political tract, of which the 

 Museum library possesses a copy, "The Dorchester House that 

 Jack Built," or this may be only the ideal prison of a hundred 

 years ago, with a local sign-post added. But we know for 

 certain its site and the date of its destruction, and can see the 

 very stones that did service in the old edifice. 



