A Visit to Newgate by Charles Dickens. Short summary

5 seconds

The author recounts how he and his friends visited Newgett Prison. The building was a quadrangular structure that housed people sentenced to death.

1 minute

Dickens shares with readers a description of how he and his companions walked the grounds of Newgett Prison shortly before the creation of the current work.

This architectural site was built in the shape of a quadrangle, the sides of which overlooked Newget Street, the former Medical College, the Court Sessions House, and the Old Bailey. The interior of the aforementioned place was divided into a pair of paved courtyards-the latter designed to allow prisoners to stroll and breathe the air. Death row inmates made up an impressive proportion of the criminal population of Newgett Prison on a compulsory basis. The wings designed to house female inmates were located in the right wing of the structure.

The writer calls the former main prison in London «a grim repository of vice and misery. In his opinion, those who passed by this dreadful place were not even aware of the suffering of the prisoners.