Page:A History of Horncastle from the Earliest Period to the Present Time.djvu/154

 260 inmates; and, with grounds attached, covers an area of between four and five acres. It is now known as "The Union," and the union district embraces 69 parishes, represented by 76 guardians, to whom, as already stated, the former duties of the overseers were transferred in 1839.

The Rev. Canon A. E. Moore is the present Chaplain.

The majesty of the law has not always been so worthily domiciled in Horncastle as during the last forty years. In Stukeley's map of the town, dated 1722, the Sessions House is placed at the south-east corner of the "Mercat Place," where there now (1908) stands a small refreshment house.



The cells for prisoners probably formed the basement of this building, as there is no known record of their being confined elsewhere, until the year 1821, when what was called the "Round House" was built, at the north-east corner of the Market Place, opposite the present Lord Nelson Inn. This was a small circular building, having two cells, with a colonnade running round it, which formed a shelter for market women selling butter, eggs, &c. The foundations of this structure were so shallow that it is on record that a prisoner, in the course of one night, scratched a passage under the wall and effected his escape. This prison was demolished in 1853, when the present police station