Haunted Prisons: The Clink, London: First private prison is a chilling piece of history

Imagine a prison where you are chained and shackled, where you live underground in the dark, no fresh air, nothing to eat but just enough bread and water to survive, and where you will remain until you die or somebody pays your debts. This prison existed for six centuries and its ghosts are said to live on.

If you thought private prisons were a phenomenon of the modern world, you would be mistaken.  The first prison in the UK to be run strictly for profit was The Clink, in south London. The prison was built and owned by the Bishop of Winchester, who bought a patch of swamp land on the south bank of the River Thames and turned the area into a thriving business. Prostitution was legalised by the Bishop as long as he was paid a fee by the prostitutes, and he built The Clink prison, from which he kept all revenue. In fact, he perfected the process of turning human misery and suffering into profit. The prison operated from the 12th century until the 1700s.

The gaolers were very poorly paid, so they found other ways to supplement their income. This meant that prisoners with money and friends on the outside were able to pay the gaolers to make their time better. Inmates could pay for better rooms, beds, bedding, candles and fuel. Food and drink were charged at twice the outside price. Staff even accepted bribes to fit lighter irons or remove them completely. Poorer prisoners had to beg at the grates that led up to street level and sell anything they had with them, including their clothes, to pay for food.

Sightings of a crying, emaciated boy have been reported in the lower tunnels, barely dressed in rags and with a chain around his neck.

Most of the lower-level cells flooded when the river tide flowed in, and many prisoners drowned in their cells. Others died of malnutrition, disease and exposure. For centuries there were rumours of the dead walking through the prison at night, ragged and shackled, crying out for mercy. 

The Clink burned down in 1780, when a wave of anti-Catholic rioting swept London. Passers-by heard screaming and moaning coming from the dark fetid tunnels where prisoners had been housed – and the noises reportedly continued for months afterwards. The prison never reopened, but today The Clink Prison Museum stands on part of its site – and is claimed to be a focus for hauntings.

The most infamous spirit is said to be a miserable young woman, rattling her chains and watching people intently. Some claim to have seen a hooded monk figure in the ruins, holding a candle as though searching for something – perhaps a way out. Sightings of a crying, emaciated boy have been reported in the lower tunnels, barely dressed in rags and with a chain around his neck.

Even today, with the prison long gone, the area where it stood seems to be a spirit ‘hot spot’ with apparitions of the dead still occasionally being seen, and low eerie moans sometimes heard in the dead of night. A haunted prison, indeed.